David Graham noted an unfortunate truism of the 2000s: The Democrats Are Now America’s Conservative Party. He's not attempting an actual critique of the long devolution of the party, just noting that the Dems are now the protector of the status quo. He never mentions characters like Joe Lieberman, Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin... Instead, he makes a lazy, static argument that Dems accomplished so much progressive policy that now they want to hold onto it, which means they're conservatives.
“Democrats” is an amazingly broad term that mostly encompasses “almost anything that isn’t Republicans”. It isn’t so much a unified monolith as an alliance of often polar opposite interests banding together only because the GOP is the only real alternative. Were the GOP to disappear tomorrow, I guarantee the Democratic party would almost instantly split into dozens of smaller parties, or possibly into two again. Compared to most of Europe, an American “Democrat” is a centrist or even a right wing neoliberal. People like Bernie Sanders, who is viewed as a far-left outright communist in America, would barely count as center left in most of Western Europe.
“Democrats” is an amazingly broad term that mostly encompasses “almost anything that isn’t Republicans”. It isn’t so much a unified monolith as an alliance of often polar opposite interests banding together only because the GOP is the only real alternative. Were the GOP to disappear tomorrow, I guarantee the Democratic party would almost instantly split into dozens of smaller parties, or possibly into two again. Compared to most of Europe, an American “Democrat” is a centrist or even a right wing neoliberal. People like Bernie Sanders, who is viewed as a far-left outright communist in America, would barely count as center left in most of Western Europe.
This is by design. A crazy party holds everyone else hostage so that reasonable and needed reforms are prevented.
As a game strategy it’s pretty fascinating but as a person subject to its outcomes it’s nausea-inducing
Exactly!! America provides numerous options in all things aside from politics. Almost as if they’re trying to control the masses…
I’m really sorry, but GOP is not a monolith too. (Though I’m not a US citizen and haven’t even been there.)
Say, plenty of people calling themselves libertarian (but in fact being mundane classic liberals) vote for it, judging by those interwebs. =\
Bernie is in some things really a communist (I’m not saying he’s a bolshevik FFS). In some other things I wouldn’t even say he’s a leftist, though.
Some of his positions are amazingly sane, and some would mean an economical burden that could become catastrophic in 10 years.