29th December 2020, 11:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 30th December 2020, 12:11 AM by A Black Falcon.)
We lost seats in the House, that's not a more liberal Congress. However, you are quite right -- if we manage to win both of the Georgia seats the Congress will be more liberal for sure. Winning those seats is a big, big deal; yes this will not be a leftist congress since both House and Senate are very close and the moderates will control what we get done, but it'd be a dramatically better outcome than Mitch McConnell continuing to control our legislative destiny!
I don't know if I quite believe that we will win either seat, but here's hoping. And yes certainly everyone's support is required, left to center. All votes are very important, and absolutely Democrats won't win without the left. I hope the Dems keep moving left on many issues as well. But hating anyone who is insufficiently left is annoying, often counter-productive, and does not ingratiate the too-online left to the rest of the party.
These things happen in cycles. To simplify, the left was dominant from the '30s to the mid '60s, then the right from the mid '60s to mid '90s, but throughout the two parties were big tents including both left and right. However, the parties started becoming more ideologically unfied and started hating the other side more. This led to a period where it is very close and very bitterly divided. Saying that "the right ran rampant for 50 years" is not true at all; they did have an advantage for some decades, but for the last 25 years we have a clear majority of the country population-wise but they keep winning because of geographical sorting.
Anyway, regardless of that, Democrats have had some major victories for the left here and there. Don't try to pretend that nothing good has happened in 50 years, that's absurd.
It is critically important to remember that Biden is not a centrist in the "center of the American political spectrum" sense. He's no Joe Manchin. He is a centrist in the "center of the Democratic Party" sense, which is a very different thing that the far left sure does not want to acknowledge. The center of a party is the place which often gets the most done since they can draw from both wings to get things passed. Like, yes, it'd be nice if we had a farther left president, but Biden is a liberal Democrat. The center of our party is liberal.
I don't know if I quite believe that we will win either seat, but here's hoping. And yes certainly everyone's support is required, left to center. All votes are very important, and absolutely Democrats won't win without the left. I hope the Dems keep moving left on many issues as well. But hating anyone who is insufficiently left is annoying, often counter-productive, and does not ingratiate the too-online left to the rest of the party.
Quote:The right wing has run rampant for 50 years, and liberal leadership has only ever slowed the process.
These things happen in cycles. To simplify, the left was dominant from the '30s to the mid '60s, then the right from the mid '60s to mid '90s, but throughout the two parties were big tents including both left and right. However, the parties started becoming more ideologically unfied and started hating the other side more. This led to a period where it is very close and very bitterly divided. Saying that "the right ran rampant for 50 years" is not true at all; they did have an advantage for some decades, but for the last 25 years we have a clear majority of the country population-wise but they keep winning because of geographical sorting.
Anyway, regardless of that, Democrats have had some major victories for the left here and there. Don't try to pretend that nothing good has happened in 50 years, that's absurd.
Quote:Centrist liberals are not leadership material.
It is critically important to remember that Biden is not a centrist in the "center of the American political spectrum" sense. He's no Joe Manchin. He is a centrist in the "center of the Democratic Party" sense, which is a very different thing that the far left sure does not want to acknowledge. The center of a party is the place which often gets the most done since they can draw from both wings to get things passed. Like, yes, it'd be nice if we had a farther left president, but Biden is a liberal Democrat. The center of our party is liberal.
Quote:If they were, they would have understood, by now, that the republicans are going to call you marxists and socialists no matter how much you bend over backwards to appease them.I certainly agree that, just like Obama, Biden is hopelessly annoying in his willingness to give the Republicans pretty much infinite chances to not be horrible authoritarians. I just hope that if they start doing the kinds of things to him that they did to Obama that he'll respond much more strongly, which I think he will -- he may be saying conciliatory words, but he knows what Obama's constant attempts at reaching out led to, he just got used. Biden is never going to be the one trashing Republicans like the left wishes, but will he take action against them legislatively if they try to block everything he wants to do? Yes, I think he will.