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Hopehappens's avatar

Tom,

No one is saying the Dems never made mistakes, but your characterization of them as not caring about issues important to liberals and assigning motive to them is unfair and inaccurate.

We have to deal in the reality that the Electoral College and the Senate tilt the field dramatically in favor of the GOP. JVL has written about this.

If you want to take a stroll through 50 years of history, I’d be glad to, because you are overlooking a lot of major facts that have affected how the Dems have acted.

In 1972, the Dems lost the presidential election by losing 49 states. We won in 1976 largely because of Watergate & we won with a moderate southern candidate. In 1980, we not only lost the WH, we lost the Senate. And in 1984, we lost the presidential election in another 49 state debacle. In 1988 we lost the White House again & it wasn’t close. Bill Clinton led an inspired effort to get us back in the game & it’s likely that without that effort no Democrat would have seen the inside of the White House in the last 25 years except to go on a tour.

Disclaimer—I worked in the Clinton WH for 8 years. Despite what the left likes to say, we accomplished a lot of good things. We restored progressivity to the tax code without one GOP vote. We banned assault weapons & passed the Brady Bill. We expanded child health care. We also made mistakes. I believe the biggest one was deregulation of the financial system. But we were not a bunch of people who didn’t care nor were we GOP lite. And for 6 of the 8 years we faced a hostile GOP/Gingrich-led Congress.

The Supreme Court we have today is the direct result of left wing voters who didn’t think Al Gore was pure enough & voted for Nader or sat the 2000 election out. That got us Alito & Roberts. And it’s a result of left wing voters who hated Hillary & voted for Jill Stein or Trump or who didn’t vote. That got us Gorshuch, Kavanaugh & Barrett. Hillary talked about the Supreme Court a lot during that campaign. She warned us. The left was clearly unmoved.

So before you blame Democrats who haven’t been pure enough to suit you, maybe look to your left for the reason we are stuck with this dangerous, horrible Court.

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Eastern Promises's avatar

One of the best posts on this site.

Without Bill Clinton, there would have been no Barack or Joe. The problem is, those who constantly complain about the lack of progressivism under the elected Democrats, they would rather have lost those races in the unprovable belief that a "True Progressive" could have won and saved the Dems and therefore the Country. It usually ends with some reference to FDR, and the like. It is, as with most LW discussions, absolute gibberish with no basis in history. It is the Susan Sarandon view of politics that only serves Susan Sarandon.

This sort of silliness is the exact reason why no sustainable left wing movement in this country has ever arisen. In a country like the US, where people have an innate distrust of large institutions, the people will be highly skeptical of a "cradle to grave" system that many of those on the Left want. This is a country where people want to succeed, value hard work and economic attainment, not social safety. If safety was our main guidepost, then guns would not be ubiquitous, internet porn would not be free and accessible to all, we would have no video games, rap music and violent movies, and drinking would be outlawed.

Again, the Left often forgets what country they are trying to run. This is what leads to their failure. It is also why on too many occasions, people on the Left find themselves increasingly disdainful of the American people.

You see this same thing on the Right by the way, mainly around social issues.

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Evan Meyers's avatar

Thanks for this synopsis. I wish that there was more historical perspective in our opinion articles!

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