Progressives (Liberals)

@hightor,

Everything being otherwise equal, independents will be more likely to vote for an independent than for a registered democrat.

Sanders is routinely elected with 2/3 of the votes in Vermont, a state with its share of republicans and independents. The guy's capacity to reach out to a broad swath of the US public is therefore obvious.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

Once you take the office, the best way to effect change is to get the public on board with your aims. It can't happen immediately

Can I point out that this acknowledges the necessity of incremental progress.

Quote:

when centrists resist positive change as hard as the Republicans.

I gather that in your ideological community, "centrist" refers to anyone who isn't Sanders or AOC (etc). You clearly deem Pelosi a centrist. To claim or imagine that she (or Warren, for **** sake) resists change as hard as modern Republicans is about as muddle-headed as you can get. It's not close to being an accurate statement. I do wish you'd appreciate how agents working in bad faith are very happy when lefties buy into this story.

Quote:

If you can martial public sentiment well enough, the midterm election would sweep out enough centrists and Republicans to give two years to get it started. Even then, it would likely take another term with a progressive majority to get where we have be.

How are you going to get that done, Edgar? What historical precedent suggests change of that degree is possible?

1 Reply

Just because something never happened before, does not mean it will never happen. People can make history. Every single day someone is doing something that was never done before.

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

I don't see the progressives instituting authoritarian measures.

I can see someone who labels themselves as progressive (and who might even believe it) acting in an authoritarian mode. Consider folks on the right who speak about their love and devotion to "liberty" and who proceed to reject a woman's right to determine her own reproductive future or who set to policing what others do in the bedroom.

2 Replies

@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

Beheading machines

When I look at illustrations such as the one you included, I can't help but hope that the fellow isn't in that position for very long as the lower back is going to start aching pretty quickly. Perhaps I'm projecting.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Quote:

fearful thinking is killing my children, and yours too if you got some.

I do but I'd trade her in on a 24 cylinder Bugatti.

1 Reply

@blatham,

Talk to your daughter about it. Kids often want a future, in my experience, while of course us old farts are dying anyway so what do we care?

0 Replies

@Lash,

Quote:

And, it is ******* over. Period.

There's a Yeats line that fits here...

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

Quote:

This question applies to all dem candidates.

Of course.

Quote:

Are we to conclude that it's better to leave Trump in the White House, because boooh boooh we cannot do a thing until the Koch brothers die?

Of course not.

The point is that any person entering the WH, either a Dem or a Republican, will face enormous obstacles enroute to his/her objectives.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
I don't see the progressives instituting authoritarian measures.
I can see someone who labels themselves as progressive (and who might even believe it) acting in an authoritarian mode. Consider folks on the right who speak about their love and devotion to "liberty" and who proceed to reject a woman's right to determine her own reproductive future or who set to policing what others do in the
bedroom.

I guess I'm too dense to understand how that is.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
Once you take the office, the best way to effect change is to get the public on board with your aims. It can't happen immediately
Can I point out that this acknowledges the necessity of incremental progress.

Quote:
when centrists resist positive change as hard as the Republicans.
I gather that in your ideological community, "centrist" refers to anyone who isn't Sanders or AOC (etc). You clearly deem Pelosi a centrist. To claim or imagine that she (or Warren, for **** sake) resists change as hard as modern Republicans is about as muddle-headed as you can get. It's not close to being an accurate statement. I do wish you'd appreciate how agents working in bad faith are very happy when

lefties buy into this story.

Quote:
If you can martial public sentiment well enough, the midterm election would sweep out enough centrists and Republicans to give two years to get it started. Even then, it would likely take another term with a progressive majority to get where we have be.
How are you going to get that done, Edgar? What historical precedent suggests change of that degree is possible?

To paraphrase a line from Cyrano de Bergerac: "Say this to all the world and then say softly to me, 'But the centrists always conveniently to the big money interests manage to lose ground daily to the right wing control over our nation.'" I speak of radical change over a period of eight years and you liken it to the pathetic increments argument that is but an excuse for adding new links to our chains.

1 Reply

@Lash,

Quote:

Did you read “Letter From Birmingham Jail”?

Could you quote us the relevant passage where MLK used "incrementalism" in the manner you suggest it was used?

0 Replies

@blatham,

Quote:

The point is that any person entering the WH, either a Dem or a Republican, will face enormous obstacles enroute to his/her objectives.

I suspect the candidates know that already...

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

Everything being otherwise equal...

But it isn't — you can't balance an equation with Trump in the picture.

Quote:

Sanders is routinely elected with 2/3 of the votes in Vermont...

Vermont is a special case. New England is already significantly more liberal than the rest of the country and the state's population has swelled in recent years with an influx of former New Yorkers and Bostonians. And as I pointed out, lots of declared independents are conservatives who routinely vote for the Republican on the ticket, maybe checking a box for a Democrat running for a minor local office.

1 Reply

@hightor,

And yet, Vermont's governor is repulican Philip Scott, who won the 2016 election with 52 percent of the vote and with 55 percent in 2018.

The same year in the same state, Bernie Sanders was elected with a resounding 67.44%.

QED: Sanders has a track-record of attracting non-dem voters.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

I guess I'm too dense to understand how that is.

More likely I just explained it poorly.

A key feature of the authoritarian response is impatience. When George Bush said that being a dictator would be easier, that's what he was talking about. Trump is the full-bodied realization of the thing within the remaining constraints of American political institutions and it's exactly why he consistently sets to dismantling those institutions.

Here in Canada back in the early 70s, a group of serious lefties set to a project of fire-bombing business entities they deemed (with good reason) environmentally destructive. They were impatient. One can label their acts (and rationale) as anarchic but there is an obvious element of authoritarian response in such acts. Things are moving too slowly. We reject prior norms.
We are morally and politically justified in taking shortcuts because our vision is more pure. And because things are going to hell.

It seems pretty obviously true that the authoritarian personality will be greeted on the right much more favorably than he/she might be on the left. But it is not black and white.

2 Replies

@edgarblythe,

Again...

Quote:

Edgar? What historical precedent suggests change of that degree is possible?

This isn't just a rhetorical question. It's a real world question.

If you and Lash hold that a necessary phase of your projected change must include a massive reorientation of American citizens' political ideas, you are going to be presented with sound critical questions about how that gets done. It's not going to work with loud statements that "Incrementalism is dead. Period!"

How do you move 300 million people when there are large and powerful voices and entities and cultural traditions telling them something else?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

Quote:
The point is that any person entering the WH, either a Dem or a Republican, will face enormous obstacles enroute to his/her objectives.

Quote:
I suspect the candidates know that already...

One would hope so. And one would hope that individual doesn't attempt to suggest he/she is a magical unicorn because that's going to work very real damage on his/her project.

Trump is an exception because he came in as a know-nothing with a criminal history and mindset. His project is himself.

1 Reply

@george
I read your earlier post but I'm not going to engage those assertions and claims regarding "freedom" and "liberty" as we've done that many times before and it has not been profitable.

0 Replies

@blatham,

Every now and then - inspired by the discussion here - something surfaces what I'd learnt ages ago in school and at university.

In Germany - in the 19th century, when political "labels" came up - followers of national liberalism differed from liberal nationalists: the former believed in a more authoritarian presence and a strong German Empire; the latter wanted a democratic "Germany" as a neighbour of other democratic European countries.

For those interested: Liberalism and nationalism in the thought of Max Weber

1 Reply

Progressives (Liberals)

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know