You said it, brother.
Unfortunately, our good friend SimonX seems to be right, in retrospect. A whole lotta hurtin’s gonna go on before we see the light…
Do you have anything that says the number has always been that high?
Well, I probably shoudn’t have said “always”. How about “quite awhile”? Is that better?
It’s my suspicion that in a couple of years everybody who voted Republican in 2004 will be identifying themselves as “fuckin’ idiots.” Maybe they’ll start a party.
I don’t think the public moved much at all. I think the parties have been slowly shifting left, and the Republicans have managed to push the Democrats over and are now occupying the political center.
And here’s a big reason why: Campaign finance reform. I think it really hurt the Democrats, because it forced them into the arms of groups like MoveOn and people like George Soros. The Democrats had to go to their left flank for money, and it pulled the party to the left. Howard Dean raised millions from the internet. But the kind of people who donate money to political parties are usually out on the edges of the spectrum. Certainly the political activist community on the internet is to the left of the mainstream.
So the influence of Dean, MoveOn, and other left-wing organizations pulled the Democrats to the left. In the meantime, the Republicans have moved into the center. Remember the Contract with America? The Republicans aren’t proposing anything like that any more. I remember when Republicans wanted to kill the Department of Education. Now they preside over a 10% per year increase in its funding.
The Democrats won big in 1992 and 1994 because they moved to the right with Bill Clinton, while the Republicans moved further right with Gingrich and others. So the Democrats occupied the center.
The notion that the Democrats lost because they have become too moderate is simply laughable. Anyone who thinks that the center of public opinion is to the left of the current Democratic party is politically tone-deaf.
Most liberals think the Dems are too conservative these days. We don’t have a liberal party any more. We have a moderate conservative party and an extreme conservative party.
I agree with **elucidator **and Diogenes. I’m not a Democrat, because the national party is too far to the right of me. The conflation of “liberal” and “Democrat,” and the idea that DLC darlings like Clinton (Mr or Mrs) and Gore are leftist loonies, strike me as strange. But I sure voted a solid Democratic ticket on November 2.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is, I doubt it’s anything new. If liberals think the Dems are too conservative now, liberals undoubtably thought that 20 yrs ago, too.
Can you outline specific policy changes that back that statement up?
No, 29 years ago it was different. Not a lot different, but a little. I was there. That was the heyday of Tip O’Neil and Ted Kennedy. They didn’t win much but there were real liberal voices in Congress. Now there aren’t any.
Can you outline specific policy changes that back that statement up?
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Policy changes? Aside from some Clinton changes like welfare “reform,” DOMA and DADT, No. Just a lack of liberal voices or policy initiatives in Congress. Consider that:
Both parties support the death penalty.
Both parties oppose same-sex marriage.
Both parties supported the invasion of Iraq.
Both parties oppose any sort of socialized or universal health care.
Both parties oppose the legalization of drugs.
Both parties support tax cuts.
What’s “liberal” about the Dems?
20 years ago.
Perhaps support for the death penalty is a “shift to the right”, but all of those other items either weren’t around 20 years ago (Iraq), or were never part of the Democratic party platform (legalization of drugs). Surely Democrats have fought for certain types of tac cuts-- is it REQUIRED that Democracts and/or liberals only support tax INCREASES?
I’m unconvinced. Perhaps there were a few more “real liberals” among the Democrats 20 years ago, but they were never mainstream. When the Dems ran a “real liberal” for president in 1972, he got absolutely trounced.
Likewise when they ran one in 1984.
I think in that race, a moderate or conservative Democrat could have managed to win more than one state. They certainly couldn’t have done worse than Mondale.
Yeah, poor ol’ dumfuk Walter Mondale. Stood up there and told the truth, about how Reagan’s tax plan, the Laughable Curve, was a crock. Said it flat out, if I’m elected, I will have to raise taxes, there ain’t no other choice, given what the lovable doofus has been up to. Loveable Doofus will raise taxes too, there is no other option. He got clobbered. And then Reagan raised taxes.
You guys have so much to be proud of! Thanks for the reminder.
That’s why I’m Libertarian. No one came blame us.
DtC: Are you sure about the death penalty? It appears that Democrats are No Longer Pushing the Death Penalty:
If you scroll up, you’ll see that I already said that I don’t think the country has shifted. It was a right wing country then, it’s a right wing country now. We had some more fiery liberals in the Democrat party in the 80’s but the people were mostly the same knuckle-draggers then that they are today. We are a very backwards people compared to the rest of the civilized world.
We still think creationism should be a topic of serious discussion, for cripes sake.
BTW, a big reason Mondale lost was because he chose a woman for a running mate. I remember that election well (it was the first one I could vote in). The misogyny on the right was unbelievable.
I voted for Reagan, incidentally. Stupidest vote I ever cast.
Right. After all, the Republicans were way more right-wing when Howard Baker, Jerry Ford, and the likes of them were leading the party than when Tom Delay, G.W. Bush, et al. are.
Noone is claiming that the center of public opinion is to the left of the current Democratic party. However, it is considerably to the left of the current Republican Party and that hasn’t hurt them. The points are that (1) the left-right thing is an oversimplification anyway and (2) the Americans want to vote for someone who has strong beliefs and stands strongly for something as long as they perceive the person as being well-meaning and sincere on this…even if they might not totally agree with the details of the approach. And, I think the polls show that the public held views on various issues that were closer to the Dems than the Republicans. And, where they didn’t as much, like on Iraq, PIPA has shown us that a large majority of those who supported Bush had manifestly false views in regards to what has been found concerning WMD programs and connections between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Sheer opportunism. American support the DP to such an overwhelming extent, it simply isn’t possible to take an opposing stance. But late developments may overtake that, so much has come out lately about the number of people unjustly accused and convicted, there may be some opening along those lines.
I, for one, sincerely hope so, killing people to assert that killing people is wrong is a barbaric practice, unworthy of a just people.
John Kerry supported the death penalty. Clinton and Gore both supported it. The party platforms don’t mean a whole lot but even so the Dems aren’t campaigning to stop the DP, they just removed an active endorsement from their platform.
I can’t find a stat but I’m pretty sure that the majority of Dems in Congress still support it.
OK, but I still don’t see any real evidence that the Democratic party, as a whole, has shifted to the right. Perhaps there are fewer liberal firebrands now than 20 years ago-- I really don’t know as I don’t keep track of that sort of thing.
But I think you’re looking only at short term oscillations (10 -20 year timeframe).
If you look longer term (50 - 60 years), it’s clear that the whole contnry has shifted to the left, including the Republican party itself. During the New Deal era, Republicans would argue against entire policies proposed by the Democrats. Now, they have accepted those policies, and just argue for a weaker version of them. How many conservative firebrands are there nowadays crying for the complete repeal of Social Security? Was the Democratic party of the 1940s rallying around the abortion issue?