Are you making a distinction between 'hard left', described below, and extremism to the left? If so, who are the extremists on the left who are at all in the national conversation (that is to say, we can discount the communists, as they aren't in the national conversation)?The rush to extremism creates a serious risk of isolation within a specific group of like-minded constituents...
Center-left is Bernie Sanders. This fits, considering the near endless (though, to be fair, still not to my knowledge properly polled, so grain of salt) interviews with Trump voters who would've voted Sanders had he made it to the general. I imagine many of these voters weren't so concerned with right or left as much as "Does he give a shit about me?" (populism, to be overly simple) - I think most folks could tell Sanders was honest, which was unique to him in contrast to the two main party nominees.The Democrats' best option is to steer center-left in order to draw away disaffected establishment republicans who simply can't stomach the likes of Trump, Bannon or Stephen Miller becoming the voices of the party (if even only temporarily).
Jagger, if you leave the label 'centrist' purely on the social scale, you're already surrendering the debate to the right. You're accepting the right as the default, with the center being defined by the other axis - this fits in with my earlier quip about centrist Democrats simply being Republicans who are okay with gays and women controlling their own bodies.Well, to be honest, I wrote it with a bit of tongue-in-cheek sarcasm that really didn't come through much I guess but my point is that if there is indeed a silent majority somewhere (either right or left), they are certainly living up to their name because the squeaky wheels in both parties are the extreme ones. Again, it's exemplified by the paucity of serious centrist candidates on either side. I reiterate my challenge for anyone to identify even one of them for 2020. I'd love to know where one is because, despite my rep here as a flaming liberal, this label is only applicable to social issues. I would consider a centrist candidate from either party fully dependent upon his or her social stance.
The left hasn't been moving. The overton window has. And the Democrats have been running hard right for decades. You even see this yourself with Bill Clinton. And Barack Obama? You really think a leftist president is going to get a $400k payout from Wall Street right out of office? You really think a leftist president would be pushing a right-wing trade deal even at the detriment to his own party's candidate? You think a leftist president, with his party in control of both chambers of Congress, would have his signature piece of legislation ensure the profits of healthcare and pharma corporations?But the left has been going farther and farther left...for a while.
Sanders was the only leftist candidate you've seen have so much success. Coupled with Corbyn's success in the UK, there's a small glimmer of hope we may yet pull out of this neoliberal crash-dive we've been in for the last half-century or so. I'm not holding my breath, though.Bernie was the most leftist candidate I've ever seen have so much success. HRC moved WAY left - otherwise she would have easily won. She just couldn't help the pull of the radical left/Bernie effect.
Still nitpicking here - these people are center-right. They just happen to be more libertarian on social issues than their Republican counterparts (and they are to the left of them, but this is like saying Arkansas is west of Florida and therefore in the west).The Left disagrees with everything you wrote. We have NOT been going further Left, we've been stuck in the center. Hilldawg, Schumer and Pelosi all represent the middle, not the Left.
Thank you. The left has been tied to the Democrats only because the system allows for only two choices, and Arkansas happens to be closer than Florida.The left is not the Dems by a longshot....in spite of the blurry lines your right-oriented views might want to connect.
'Reject' is a strong word - a no-name senator from a state whose population is roughly equal to my neighborhood's went up against the largest political apparatus ever built in this country headed by a candidate with more name recognition than anybody, and closed a 60-point polling gap and captured around 43% of the primary vote.Bernie Sanders was rejected by the Dems, remember?
Again, nice beer. Sieg Heil!
This conversation still suffers from literal one-dimensional thinking. Right-left are economic; authoritarian-libertarian are social. There are other grids besides the Political Compass one I favor (for simplicity), but they all agree that you can't accurately describe political positions one-dimensionally.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
Are you making a distinction between 'hard left', described below, and extremism to the left? If so, who are the extremists on the left who are at all in the national conversation (that is to say, we can discount the communists, as they aren't in the national conversation)?
Center-left is Bernie Sanders. This fits, considering the near endless (though, to be fair, still not to my knowledge properly polled, so grain of salt) interviews with Trump voters who would've voted Sanders had he made it to the general. I imagine many of these voters weren't so concerned with right or left as much as "Does he give a shit about me?" (populism, to be overly simple) - I think most folks could tell Sanders was honest, which was unique to him in contrast to the two main party nominees.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016
Jagger, if you leave the label 'centrist' purely on the social scale, you're already surrendering the debate to the right. You're accepting the right as the default, with the center being defined by the other axis - this fits in with my earlier quip about centrist Democrats simply being Republicans who are okay with gays and women controlling their own bodies.
The left hasn't been moving. The overton window has. And the Democrats have been running hard right for decades. You even see this yourself with Bill Clinton. And Barack Obama? You really think a leftist president is going to get a $400k payout from Wall Street right out of office? You really think a leftist president would be pushing a right-wing trade deal even at the detriment to his own party's candidate? You think a leftist president, with his party in control of both chambers of Congress, would have his signature piece of legislation ensure the profits of healthcare and pharma corporations?
No. That's a media narrative, and not an accidental one. You aren't the only one fooled by it, though - not by a longshot.
Sanders was the only leftist candidate you've seen have so much success. Coupled with Corbyn's success in the UK, there's a small glimmer of hope we may yet pull out of this neoliberal crash-dive we've been in for the last half-century or so. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Still nitpicking here - these people are center-right. They just happen to be more libertarian on social issues than their Republican counterparts (and they are to the left of them, but this is like saying Arkansas is west of Florida and therefore in the west).
Thank you. The left has been tied to the Democrats only because the system allows for only two choices, and Arkansas happens to be closer than Florida.
'Reject' is a strong word - a no-name senator from a state whose population is roughly equal to my neighborhood's went up against the largest political apparatus ever built in this country headed by a candidate with more name recognition than anybody, and closed a 60-point polling gap and captured around 43% of the primary vote.
As I said, you SJWs only retort is "YOU'RE A RACISSSSST!!!!!"
There are very few politicians (if any at all) that aren't against the flood of immigrants into this country, both legal and illegal alike. Every one of them is hell bent on bringing in as much third world trash and consequently continuing to eradicate the middle-class in America. By default, therefore, they are all "leftist" politicians. Economically at least. They're all a bunch of double-dealing ratbastards who, every last one of them, should be tried for treason and fucking dealt with.
You literally have this backwards - immigrants as cheap labor is an economically right idea. Capitol loves it. Free market, remember?
Except liberals (unions) are behind the screams for allowing the entire third world into the country. Funny how that works.
Cheap immigrant labor*, although it stands true enough as it was.Unsubstantiated hyperbole aside, that's irrelevant to the fact that cheap labor is an economically rightwing idea.
Unsubstantiated hyperbole aside, that's irrelevant to the fact that cheap labor is an economically rightwing idea.
And communism is an economically left wing idea.
And communism is an economically left wing idea.
I mean, it is. Its abrupt interjection into a back-and-forth about immigration is out of place and apparently without a point though.
:dunno:
I mean, it is. Its abrupt interjection into a back-and-forth about immigration is out of place and apparently without a point though.
:
I'm fairly in agreement with where the Political Compass put him:I'd be delighted to hear your point of view on where Mr. Trump is on the political scale...you know, since democrats and liberals are "right" and all that.
He isn't defined so much by right or left so much as extreme authoritarianism and whatever economic whim, rightwing or leftwing, will enrich him in the moment (which to be fair, is inherently rightwing). The dude wants to be a dictator. I doubt he'd quibble much over whether it's a fascist or communist dictatorship.
To what end?I think the man is as bad a flip-flopper as I've ever seen in office, but, as I've stated on this board a few times, I chose him not for his conservatism, but for the single purpose of the impending Supreme Court picks.
His flip slopping? Or the picks he would make?
Are you making a distinction between 'hard left', described below, and extremism to the left? If so, who are the extremists on the left who are at all in the national conversation (that is to say, we can discount the communists, as they aren't in the national conversation)?
Center-left is Bernie Sanders. This fits, considering the near endless (though, to be fair, still not to my knowledge properly polled, so grain of salt) interviews with Trump voters who would've voted Sanders had he made it to the general. I imagine many of these voters weren't so concerned with right or left as much as "Does he give a shit about me?" (populism, to be overly simple) - I think most folks could tell Sanders was honest, which was unique to him in contrast to the two main party nominees.
Jagger, if you leave the label 'centrist' purely on the social scale, you're already surrendering the debate to the right. You're accepting the right as the default, with the center being defined by the other axis - this fits in with my earlier quip about centrist Democrats simply being Republicans who are okay with gays and women controlling their own bodies.
'Reject' is a strong word - a no-name senator from a state whose population is roughly equal to my neighborhood's went up against the largest political apparatus ever built in this country headed by a candidate with more name recognition than anybody, and closed a 60-point polling gap and captured around 43% of the primary vote.