I don’t believe that there is any statistically significant group of people who are accurately described this way anymore.
That’s nice. This isn’t fucking Europe.
Yeah…and…?
American exceptionalism. Except these days, it seems to mean
“America is exceptionally shitty and we’re not going to do anything about that.”
Except everyone said that earlier this year and Biden ran over all the people who thought this way in the primaries, on the backs of the voters you claim no longer exist.
That’s why we can’t have nice things.
Clinton did try to get universal healthcare passed (it was one of his major campaign promises). The 1994 midterms really did move him farther to the right (because he didn’t want to get pummeled in 1996).
It’s not about voters who alternate between Trump and Biden. It’s about voters who either vote for Biden or don’t show up at all. Winning for the Democrats is about getting people to turn up at the polls, not about getting people to switch over.
The 1994 election moved him to the right because he had no choice. The Republicans had a ‘wave’ election in 1994 and took control of both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. They gained 8 seats in the Senate and 54 seats in the House - largely because Clinton tried to govern from the left in his first two years.
There might be a warning in there for Democrats if they win this election and decide to push to the left.
Obama tried to govern to the middle and treat the Republicans like a good-faith party in negotiations… and the Dems lost big in 2010. Losing big in the midterms is the normal course of things, with a few rare exceptions. Might as well try to get big Democratic priorities done – otherwise, what’s the point of winning an election?
So the lesson is “Focus on your priorities, because the Republicans have made it clear that they will never compromise even if it’s in their own interest to do so”. They’ll fuck you over if you reach out to them and they’ll fuck you over if you don’t, so why waste time doing so? Work on achieving things people actually want and make the obstructionist assholes irrelevant.
So you’re moving goalposts here from “there are no centrists” to “we don’t need them to win.” I already said:
Now, in an era in which hyperpartisanship isn’t going anywhere, candidates like Clinton and Obama may not really exist again, and it could be a firebrand is what is needed and what will win national elections. That could be the case, but if it is, it’s materially different from Clintonism/Obamaism.
1994 was an awful long time ago. At the end of the day Obama 2010 kind of suggests that it’s not really being too far to the left that gets Democrats punished, it is not delivering real results to their constituency to keep them energized. Obama came in with a big mandate and pushed what was basically a Republican healthcare reform plan, got zero Republican buy in, and didn’t deliver a lot of real “material” wins. He let the GOP block him on economic stimulus by not pushing harder to pass needed stimulus programs over Republican filibusters in the Senate. Any benefits that came from Obamacare were always going to come years down the road, and thus were predictably not going to help much in 2010.
In 2014 it was kind of the same thing, Democrats basically were being punished for the GOP’s ability to stymie their governing. I think the real answer is Democrats if they want to hold power, need to deliver key, core constituency legislation, hard and fast if they win this year. If the conservative courts find ways to strike it down, they then need to make that the blood shirt for the 2022 midterms. Basically Democrats voters punish Democrats for not getting stuff done, even when the primary reason for that is Republican refusal to compromise. Republican voters largely never punish their elected officials for anything.
I didn’t say “there are no centrists.” I said there are few people who alternate between voting for a Democrat and a Republican for president these days.
And thus, I didn’t say “we don’t need them to win.” Because I’m still saying there aren’t enough of them to matter.
“Centrist” does not mean “someone who alternates between voting for Democrats and Republicans.”
In fact, it’s a stretch to say that any significant number of people who voted for Trump are centrists.
You’re kinda forgetting the recession and unemployment at 10% It’s complete bullshit that the Democrats got punished for not being progressive enough, most of the damage was done to conservadems when their borrowed time was finally up.
How could he “push harder”?
I don’t know but presidents can certainly push. Call senators into the Oval Office and lean on then, appeal to them, threaten them (with political dirt they may have), offer enticements and so on. I’m not saying it is always possible or it will always work but neither is the president totally helpless.
It is also possible that no matter what the president tries he won’t be able to change enough minds to his way anyway. Republicans are remarkably good at whipping their members into toeing their line.
Same thing happened to George H. W. Bush when he tried to work in good-faith with the Dems over taxes which is why he’s a one-term President. Seems like the moral of the story is don’t trust your enemies.
I note that Faux News is now running scare headlines about how AOC is going to be taking over congress. They really do count on the stupidity of their viewers, don’t they?
More than possible.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” -Mitch McConnell
That was the GOP plan for the country when Obama was president. Full stop.
And now, the GOP plan for the country is to reverse every single thing Obama did, no matter if it was good for the country or not. That, and blaming doctors for Covid.