In retrospect, it probably would have been in the best interest of the progressive caucus to blink on the infrastructure bill before their party lost the Virginia governor's seat and almost losing New Jersey. Based on the narrow margins, it could easily have made the difference.

It's a weird thing. The two wings of the Republican Party obviously hate each other much more on a personal level. By all accounts, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump absolutely despise each other and aren't on speaking terms. However, because Trump never really cared about policy, they never had these big fights on policy. The closest they came to this sort of crisis was on the ACA immigration, and ultimately they were fine doing nothing in both cases. Certainly it was sort of spitting in the eye of their base. You run on immigration as an apocalyptic crisis of national Identity, you get the House, Senate, White House, and Court, and then proceed to hold not a single vote on migration, not even token legislation about deporting rapists or something. However, it never blew up for them.

The old GOP and Trumpists are way further apart on policy than the progressive and center Dems, right? I mean, in their own words, Trumpist policy basically sounds like fascism. State intervention in markets is fine, neoliberal policy, a pillar of the GOP for a century, is the enemy. But because the Trumpists are so beholden to what Trump focuses on, and what he focuses on is generally not legislation, they avoid blowups.

Meanwhile, the Democrats really aren't that far apart except on the importance of deficits and the need for government action in social change (e.g. federal curricula based on the 1618 Project, that sort of thing). However, they can't seem to get along.

I think it comes down to the charismatic leader. Biden just seems empty. Him coming down on one side of an issue doesn't hold weight for AOC or Manchin. I think this is showing his weakness.

As much as Obama wasted a lot of his super majority time trying to be a both sides of the aisle guy, I think he'd be a lot more able to sway his own party now. Not to mention that without term limits we'd almost certainly have seen Trump lose almost every swing state in 2016, and might be seeing a more seasoned negotiator Obama in his fourth term now. Term limits certainly seem like a mistake now, especially as we gave an octogenarian rematch for 2024.

As I read Obama's book, it just hurts. I can certainly see him winning in 2016, Trump had razor thin margins, and maybe again in 2020 depending on what happened. We'd have the American Solon we really need, the level headed reformer who idealized liberal democracy and doesn't rely on simplistic ideology to appeal for support.

Who's going to full in Sanders shoes?

My guess is no one. He's part of an "old left" with an ideology based mostly on class. Not totally sure what to call it, maybe "classical socialism." The new left has somewhat similar policy aims, but identity plays a core role in ideology. Since that side is ascendant, I think the "new Bernie," as in leader of the far-left in the US, will come from that outlook.

In terms of their success though, that might not be a good thing, because what research there is on identity framing, it makes people less likely to support a policy, even if they benefit from it. That could always change though with a culture shift though, it just hasn't been electorally appealing so far.

AOC would be the front runner now IMHO. Best name recognition, charismatic, young. Maybe Ilhan Omar, although she's had some missteps with part of the base over comments on Israel. AOC also seems better with the Twitter zingers, which is now a key asset for leaders, lol. It also seems like she is getting groomed more, which might just come down to personality and networking. And there is Rashida Talib, but I'm less sure of her. I might be biased by one segment of C-SPAN of her trying to grill staff for the Federal Reserve that revealed she really had no idea how central banks work and hadn't taken the time to find out before going for a grand stand.

There is no better way to absolve man of his failings than to devise a state program to cover for him. — NOS4A2

Sure there is. We don't need a state program to put up a blue wall, a green wall, or any other kind of wall. Groups of people can do great good, and great bad, but It is natural for people to look the other way when a comrade does wrong. That guy who just saved your life gets a pass, even if he is a racist POS who beats his wife or is otherwise an asshole. People want to fit in and don't want to be seen as a rat.

Take one of the most socialist institutions in the world: The U.S. military. When it comes down to it, you aren't fighting for ideals, country, etc.: you are fighting for the person on your left and your right. The state is irrelevant.

Human beings are engaged in one huge open conspiracy to fuck the planet and do whatever is in their own best interest regardless of the form of government that exercises power over them. Only the benefit of objectivity from 10k feet can pretend to look at the long game, and again, the long game can be good or bad; individual or group. But that is where you try to temper greed with enlightened self interest. You regulate, you legislate, you impose collective will on the individual.

Lmao the US military are mall cops of oil corporations.

In retrospect, it probably would have been in the best interest of the progressive caucus to blink on the infrastructure bill before their party lost the Virginia governor's seat and almost losing New Jersey. Based on the narrow margins, it could easily have made the difference. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Screw VA and NJ. Burn the house down. Vote against the BBB, against the infrastructure bill, against raising the debt limit in December. Teach the Democrats a lesson. Manchin and Sinema and the conservative (no, they are not "moderate") Democrats don't hold the Trump cards they think they do. Everyone is starting to play a zero sum game so the left needs to play by those rules. They will, eventually, win. They just need to be prepared to not only tax, but to claw back, and prevent the rats from taking their shit when they jump the ship. Let the rats go into those cold international waters without the life jacket paid for by Americans.

Lmao the US military are mall cops of oil corporations. — StreetlightX

Which adds absolutely nothing to the conversation or the analogy I was making. Another opportunity for you to try and get your stupid and irrelevant argument in. It's like the girl you wish you wouldn't have started a conversation with on SNL.

AOC would be the front runner now IMHO. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Agreed. I just see her like Mr. Smith goes to Washington and question her (or anyone's) ability to remain pure after getting kicked around by the conniving professionals like McConnel, Pelosi, etc. Not everyone can be a Bernie. Hopefully AOC can get better with age.

identity plays a core role in ideology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Where a house divided against itself cannot stand, we're going to have to start picking sides. I'll identify with her before I'd give the time of day to her opposition.

You're probably right but it's funny to see someone call an institution of war criminals and murderers that preys on the poor and desperate and subcontracts for American corporate power a socialist institution.

You're probably right but it's funny to see someone call an institution of war criminals and murderers that preys on the poor a socialist institution. — StreetlightX

It's just another irony in America. Kind of like bootstrapping, personal responsibility and other myths. Our military is exalted beyond all measure by the right, but it's fundamental nature is the ass-opposite of everything the right stands for. Talk about big government, cooperative, communal, etc.

But the right knows it's hypocrisy and that is why it has been trying to do to the military what it did to the U.S. Post Office: start privatizing it; and I mean way more than the traditional gun boat service to big oil.

The old GOP and Trumpists are way further apart on policy than the progressive and center Dems, right? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Trump had no policies and no ideology. He was happy to go along with whatever McConnell, Ryan, and the others wanted to do -- reshape the courts for a generation, give massive tax cuts, and repeal the ACA without anything to replace it. 2/3 -- a huge success for them. (You could argue 3/3, since the ACA was weakened -- and was never great to begin with.)

Trump had no policies and no ideology. — Xtrix

:100: Not even the evangelical Christian right was so stupid as to think Trump actually gave a rat's ass about fetuses. They just sold their soul (and their vote) to a devil who promised to execute in their favor. A devil who cheats on his wife, grabs pussy, cusses and generally carries on in away that would have once set these people's hair on fire with righteous fury. But they will roll with the devil if he plays their game. And he takes them for a ride.

fundamental nature is the ass-opposite of everything the right stands for. — James Riley

It's fundamental nature is killing poor people for American profits. I'd say it stands for exactly what the right does. And so too what passes for 'the left' in America too frankly.

It's fundamental nature is killing poor people for American corporations. I'd say it stands for exactly what the right does. And so too what passes for 'the left' in America too frankly. — StreetlightX

That's because you are incapable of understanding the truth of the matter asserted (the reason for which the argument was made) and are hell-bent on seeing everything through your ignorant anti-American lens. If you understood socialism, and how the U.S. military fits four-square within that assessment, then you would see that it isnot inconsistent with your view of how that military is used abroad. Let me dumb it down for you: What you say is true. That has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with what I said.

Mmm, which is I suppose why you and your ilk unconditionally flag carry for one of the most aggressive foreign policy war hawks to have ever breathed oxygen, under the banner of "progressivism".

Mmm, which is I suppose why you and your ilk unconditionally flag carry for one of the most agressive foreign policy war hawks to have ever breathed oxygen. — StreetlightX

:roll: I thought of another analogy: I am talking about how the gun is manufactured and how it is operated. Then you come in with your irrelevant agenda and complain about what the gun is being used for. For all you know, others may be in total agreement with you on the misuse of the gun. But you always shoot yourself in your foot when you shoot off your mouth, not knowing that no one was talking about shooting.

A devil who cheats on his wife, grabs pussy, cusses — James Riley

These aren't problems, they are nice to haves. Give me whatever big asshole is available to keep the welfare state viable in the Netherlands, instead of austerity, and I'll vote for him.

Globalization allowed liberalism to be disembedded. It was a tool for undermining labor. — frank

Exactly.

Opening the barriers for money and financial capital to move around freely and then have competition with labor costs basically undermined the previous system where labor regulation and wages were done at the nation level. To have global labor laws etc. simply wasn't as easy as opening the trade barriers or banking. And who would have an incentive to push through such a thing?

My point is that since you have such a multitude of different actors in this, it simply isn't so that all actors adhered to one "socioeconomic program" of neoliberalism. I doubt that the Chinese or Vietnamese leaders were preaching the same mantra as people in the US, but they were keen to have a growing export sector. But people usually just look at the issue from their own perspective or that of the "West". And of course it's the typical narrative of telling large scale events happening all because of one certain program of a few people.

No one has actually pushed the US to default on its debts when they had the votes to do so, and the logic there is clearly that sparking a financial panic is not going to make voters like you more. Nor does it make sense to plunge the country into chaos if your goal is to improve people's lives.

Second, progressives sorely lack the support for those sort of antics. The Republican Party is fairly unified, at least when it comes to voters showing up to the polls and voting for their candidates. Obvious exceptions abound, Trump saw a huge swing down in his share.of the White male vote in 2020, largely on educated voters getting tired of his antics specifically. At least that's how I'd interpret the fact that Trump's support among White men plunged, almost all driven by those with degrees, but that those same voters hewed much more Republican down ballot.

But Trump had a surge elsewhere, particularly with Hispanic voters without degrees, outperforming any recent Republican with Hispanic voters by a wide margin with 38% of the vote despite Democratic prognostications about a Blue Wave driven by Hispanic voters.


https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/new-trump-poll-women-hispanic-voters-497199

This is important as regards Progressives claims because they often like to speak as if they represent the overwhelming popular will of anyone who isn't White. In fact, more Hispanics vote Trump than identify as progressive, a margin of 38-25, and more identify as conservative (35) than progressive. Nor is the gap particularly large for Black voters, (25% conservative, 28% progressive).

https://news.gallup.com/poll/275792/remained-center-right-ideologically-2019.aspx

And whereas dyed in the wool Trumpists might have similar margins of public support, they can count on a unified voter bloc to come along with them.

Progressives are stuck with 20-25% support, and not even majority support in the Democratic party (obviously not in seats and positions, but not even in popularity either). How do you play hardball with a quarter of the vote, when half your party is willing to defect or not show up if you go to far on ideology? Progressives claim they are the "people's will," but the people they claim to represent speak with a different voice at the polls (I'm sure the rhetorical answer is that this is "internalized oppression...")

Not to mention, the primary system, particularly closed primary states, give a massive outsized advantage to radical voices on both ends of the spectrum. If the US primary system wasn't such an antiquated mess, it seems unlikely that Trump could have won the nomination, but similar changes to make it more representative of the general public would also make Sanders a non-contender. Fact is, progressives already benefit from systemic overrepresentation of their priorities, to the detriment of Democrats actually winning elections.

2020 ,with the huge expansion of mail in voting, ease of access to the polls, and absolutely historic sky high turn out, should be a major warning sign to Democrats in general. They got every election reform they could dream of to go their way outside district maps, and a noxious opponent on top of the GOP ballot, and preformed underwhelmingly given that big advantage. Democrats have plenty to hope for in how much the win the young vote (70% of Millennial women, Bush II took 50% of the 18-24 vote in 2000, Trump took just 36% in 2020, Trump lost voters under 55 by 9 and 11 points in each year respectively, landslide margins). But support in people polled =\= votes, and if you can't get proportional turn out in a year where everyone gets mailed an early ballot and can drop them off by drive through, you're never going to get it. Enthusiasm just isn't as high.

Or basically, you can't play hardball when you're the least popular faction in government, which progressives are in polling, in votes, and in seats.

Or basically, you can't play hardball when you're the least popular faction in government, which progressives are in polling, in votes, and in seats. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think similar assessments were had for the Tea Party. But I'm no expert on these things. I'm on the outside looking in, thinking that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The husband is a wife beater and the wife is subordinate, even if she brings home a larger check. The teen daughter is flexing while the teen son is playing video games.

Anyway, I'd like to see Liz Cheney run and split the ticket. I can just see the debates where Trumps asks why she's running if she voted with him 97% of the time. And she just says "Because I actually believe that stuff and you are a dishonorable coward and a liar."

Then I woke up.

These aren't problems, they are nice to haves. Give me whatever big asshole is available to keep the welfare state viable in the Netherlands, instead of austerity, and I'll vote for him. — Benkei

As long as you don't pretend to be against that stuff like a good little Christian evangelical, then yeah, go for it. But he could, literally, shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, even one of his own, and his base would not care. He could pay for abortions and wipe his ass with a bible and his base would make some Q story up for him. He's a god. They worship him.

Opening the barriers for money and financial capital to move around freely and then have competition with labor costs basically undermined the previous system where labor regulation and wages were done at the nation level. — ssu

And so labor, which had become very effective and powerful in the UK and the US was left with nothing.

My point is that since you have such a multitude of different actors in this, it simply isn't so that all actors adhered to one "socioeconomic program" of neoliberalism. — ssu

Biebricher spends a chapter explaining the complications associated with the use of "neoliberal" in The Political Theory of Neoliberalism, one of which is that no one claims that title with a straight face.

I think it's more that success bred success. A certain anti-egalitarian model became popular simply because it worked so well, though the first experiments with it were forced on developing nations.

My point is that since you have such a multitude of different actors in this, it simply isn't so that all actors adhered to one "socioeconomic program" of neoliberalism. I doubt that the Chinese or Vietnamese leaders were preaching the same mantra as people in the US, but they were keen to have a growing export sector. — ssu

The Chinese and Vietnamese rejected neoliberalism. So the example makes little sense. There’s good scholarship on this — Ha Joon Chang is one.

For some reason you’re insisting on thinking about neoliberalism as a religion with card-carrying followers. It’s a set of policies enacted over roughly 40 years. The name is given to this shift of policy. Deregulation, tax cuts, privatization, etc. The push came out of the corporate sector, who rallied together in the 70s very openly. The Powell memo is partly the catalyst.

You’re arguing against a straw man.

Yeah literally the only person who thinks neoliberalism is some big conspiracy is ssu.

Speaking of neoliberalism, the debt-ridden, big government policies that led to it are now occurring once again. Stagflation?

Inflation jumped 6.2% in October, biggest monthly rise in 30 years

A stagflation swamp: Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0

Keynesian economics dominated economic theory and policy after World War II until the 1970s, when many advanced economies suffered both inflation and slow growth, a condition dubbed “stagflation.” Keynesian theory’s popularity waned then because it had no appropriate policy response for stagflation. (IMF)

17 Nobel Prize–winning economists back Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan

I would bet money that most of those laureates are Neo-Keynesians. :nerd:

Speaking of neoliberalism, the debt-ridden, big government policies that led to it are now occurring once again. Stagflation? — NOS4A2

Yeah, $7 trillion/ten-year defense budges will do that to you. Anyway, no matter how high inflation gets, do you think we will ever pay true cost for anything? Wouldn't that be nice.

Speaking of neoliberalism, the debt-ridden, big government policies that led to it are now occurring once again. Stagflation? — NOS4A2

I think most of that spending was an attempt to keep financial institutions from imploding. Big fat imploders.

Yeah, $7 trillion/ten-year defense budges will do that to you. Anyway, no matter how high inflation gets, do you think we will ever pay true cost for anything? Wouldn't that be nice.

There is so much government intervention in the way that no one could ever know.

Who knows? It’s out of control. It’s amazing how fast an institution can spend other people’s money.