What's The Matter With The Democratic Party?

[stupidicus]

I think the majority of us here can answer that question, and think it's more about intentions and design than the happenstance some excuse it with.

Allow me to drop a single, disturbing data point on this march of science. You might recall that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives from the early 1930s until 1994 with only two brief Republican interludes. What ended all that was not an ill-advised swerve to the left, but the opposite: A long succession of moves toward what is called the “center,” culminating in the administration of New Democrat Bill Clinton, who (among other things) signed the Republicans’ NAFTA treaty into law. Taking economic matters off the table was thought to be the path of wisdom among expert-worshipping Washingtonians, but it had the unforeseen consequence of making culture that much more important for a large part of the population. Democrats were eventually swamped by all the crazy grievance campaigns of the right, which has splashed back and forth in the mud of the culture wars ever since. http://crooksandliars.com/2014/09/thomas-frank-whats-matter-democratic-party

The recent rise in rightwingnuttery imo, and most notably that of the Tea Party, has served this cause by pushing the already well off center ideological dividing line in DC further to the right, and increased the dread on both sides of that line over the alternative. The so-called centrist dem now looks more like a saint and savior than the sinner they often are in terms of lefty causes. That's the primary motivator so many balk at -- "Vote for us, or suffer through the alternative!!!".

That's the kinda stuff enthusiasm is made of, ain't it?

[NYC_SKP]

1. Hillary Clinton, for one. nt

[stupidicus]

4. indeed

if she's the candidate, I will struggle with my vote as I never have before.

[Kilgore]

10. Hillary Borg Clinton

Part of the borg collective that call themselves Democrats.

We need someone who will drag the party back to its roots!!

GO BERNIE!!!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. People who left the Republican Party out of sheer embarrassment with the nutters

but while proclaiming themselves Dems simply want to enact Republican policies from decades ago that they dusted off, and don't really agree with large sections of the Dem Party platform.

That's how I'd restate it.

[stupidicus]

5. it's really kinda strange

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25838 because that crew musta underwent quite a morph job themselves in a rather short period of time

[hifiguy]

20. The Democratic Party is now

ideologically speaking, about where the moderate-to-liberal Republicans like Chuck Percy and Jacob Javits were back in the mid-1970s, or maybe a bit to their right. (Nixon aside, as Nixon's only ideology was the advancement of Nixon by whatever means necessary).

I am old enough to remember and was there.

[stupidicus]

24. indeed

the EPA pres. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2011%2F09%2F03%2F1013155%2F-Nixon-more-liberal-than-Obama&ei=gV8YVNSLNYS3yATH14GgDw&usg=AFQjCNHoYE_4iPLytIpchS4uHf2ohd28gw&bvm=bv.75097201,d.aWw

Rightwingers today are like rabid dogs no longer resembling the pooch they were before the infection

[whereisjustice]

3. well said, you are 100% correct, Democratic Party is moving to the right at the same rate

as the Republicans. There is no counter balance from the left, leaving a vacuum of leadership willing to represent people instead of corporations.

"Dead Broke" Hillary Clinton is the poster child for a Democratic Party who just isn't all that into you.

Unless you are a millionaire.

[stupidicus]

6. my hope is

that those like Sanders, Warren, Grayson, and others will show there's nothing to fear over flying the "liberal" flag proudly

[Veganhealedme]

7. The silent filibuster. nt

[stupidicus]

8. Indeed

silence in these cases represents nothing but consent and enabling imo

[Bonhomme Richard]

9. I once read a saying..." The Democratic Party where great ideas go to die". n/t

[stupidicus]

14. and there's likely some merit to that

like serving "we the people" for example.

They seem to have drifted away somewhat from that in recent decades in noticable ways.

[Puzzledtraveller]

11. corporatism

It's all the rage.

[stupidicus]

15. you know it

I've long thought far too many have been willing to overlook it in the wake of the real and imagined successes during the Clinton admin

[Snarkoleptic]

12. The Democratic Party is, like all U.S. politics, corrupted and perverted by big money.

The degrees of corruption vary, but it's rather like being a little bit pregnant.

We need public funding of campaigns, an amendment reversing corporate citizenship, redefine money as property and NOT free speech, stop the revolving door from public service to K-street, etc.

In short, we need to IMPORT Democracy.

[stupidicus]

16. great points

and I think your leading suggestion the most important and best place to start. The "money is speech" doctrine would become meaningless then.

[RobertEarl]

13. Can you handle the Truth?

The voting machines have made it very easy for the republicans to get elected.

Many good Dems have been voted out of office via the republican owned and operated voting machines that first started being used in the 1980's.

[stupidicus]

19. well, I'd say we lack certainty on that issue

but I'd be the last to summarily dismiss rightwinger chicanery.

I'd add as well that I don't think that the issue has recieved the attention it deserves.

[RobertEarl]

25. Don't put it past them

They impeached Clinton over nothing.

Then they stole the 2000 election from Gore.

You think they said: Okay, we're done stealing and breaking?

Tom Delay pushed through congress, a nearly 4 billion dollar spending bill that bought electronic voting machines for the entire country. Most of those e-vote machines are now scrap. But the count is still done mainly by scanners which are computer based and owned by republicans.

Do the math.

Obama won because of the massive turnout in 2008.

2012 was right down to the wire with Rove on Fox news the last holdout. And that after a well known computer hacking group let it be known they had beat Rove at his computer game.

It all adds up. They steal, they stole. Means, move, and opportunity.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. "Not as bad" is a piss poor campaign slogan or form of government.

The Centrists in the party offer nothing but "more of the same" and get upset when people don't bother to vote or vote for it.

[stupidicus]

21. well, it has been one of their selling points

and likely from the beginning

Some political analysts like Kenneth Baer contend the DLC embodies the spirit of Truman-Kennedy era Democrats and were vital to the Democratic party's resurgence after the election losses of liberals George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis.[24][25] Simon Rosenberg, a long time Democratic campaign operative and strategist, said recently, "there is a strong argument to be made that the DLC has been the most influential think tank in American politics over the past generation... the DLC helped set in motion a period of party modernization that has helped the Democratic Party overcome the potent and ultimately ruinous rise of the New Right."[26] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council

these days it's hard to see how they can avoid the "not as bad" thing by implication at least, given all the fearmongering (whether justified or not) over rightwingers.

[hifiguy]

18. It was DLC-ified and sold to many of the same corporate interests

that own the Repubs.

Simple and accurate. Hillary is Exhibit A.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

22. Blue dogs and Reagan Democrats is what happened to the Democratic Party. nt

[stupidicus]

23. yep

as I've argued it to that type around here, I don't think that it's a lack of knowing and understanding what's been going on, but rather how much of that bad we're willing to tolerate for the bones they toss us to gnaw on. As evidenced by the size of the support for Sanders and lack of it for HC around here, methinks they need to find some new placation material.

BHO demanding that he be taken off the DLC membership list pre-election in 2008 was one of the bigger reasons he got my vote. Then he went and appointed Rahmbo to....