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AOC: "The Democratic Party is not a left party. They're a center, or center-right party." [READ OP]
- Thread starter Poodlestrike
- Start date
Exactly. Trump didn't sprout out out of nowhere. Biden assuring us things will go back to normalcy is assuring us these problems are only going to become more of an issue. Its a negative peace that isn't going to fundamentally change anything.
I will be so happy when this day comes.
The one thing American media and politicians share, is being utterly and irremediable forgetful.
Not so many months ago, the general sentiment of the Democratic party (on that front) was.. to "fix" Obamacare. Medicare for all was seeing as an ideal to be pursued in future generations.
AOC was mercilessly attacked from all fronts, when she presented the Green New Deal. Something that post-Greta Thunberg, sounds like a good thing to consider (sometime in the future).
A share of Democrats were wondering the best approach to fight back Iran, this month.
I'm not even bother to discuss the total inaction about having freaking kids in Detention Camps. Or mass assassinations, via drones, in other countries. Or pro Israelism/anti Palestine, etc.
But sure, Center-Left.
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I don't think anyone else stands a chance from the moment she announces her candidacy for the White House.
A vote for Joe is a vote for Republicans. Either he loses the general and we get four more years of Trump, or he wins and he keeps the seat warm for the next Republican. We can not afford for him to be the nominee if we want progressive reform in our lifetimes.
ah yes, single payer health-care, that most left wing policy thinkable, only enacted in the most socialist of countries"
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It's not possible for us to change that unless we fundamentally change how we do elections.
And while I do advocate for us changing to a multi-member proportional representation system (each state would get X number of reps like they do now, scaled up a bit to like a 500,000 to 1 ratio instead of the 750,000 to 1 we have now, but distributed based on % of vote share rather than arbitrarily drawn districts), it's not without its flaws. How many years did Germany need a Grand Coalition? How many times has Israel needed to have elections in the last year? Sometimes the country's political opinions are just hopelessly divided and without consensus.
Exactly. Now consider that one party is formed out of a trade union movement, and a different party is formed out of an alliance of northern urban workers and slaveholding agrarians, which is going to be better at resolving disagreements about redistribution?
This is why I said the Democratic Party is such a weird duck internationally and is more prone to identity crisis and internal disagreement. It's not just white supremacy, it's really really weird for a political party to be formed like that.
I'm not American, and obviously I agree.
BUT
the reality is that the US has essentially a one-party system, where one of them is pure racist evil (that would be the GOP, in case you can't tell), and the other one wants to be not-that. So technically the Democratic Party is the only party to is defined by what its voters want it to be. If that reveals a center-right bias, then you SHOULD be aware that this is a problem with the voter, not so much any politician trying to represent said voter.
Let's be real here: American democracy isn't broken, it's exactly what the (white) American voter has consistently elected it to be.
edit: additionally, however, the people DID elect Hillary Clinton on a far more progressive platform than ever before, so it's not as if the voter isn't changing, but they're still stuck with the legacy of all the votes that came before (the EC, Senate, and everything else).
BUT
the reality is that the US has essentially a one-party system, where one of them is pure racist evil (that would be the GOP, in case you can't tell), and the other one wants to be not-that. So technically the Democratic Party is the only party to is defined by what its voters want it to be. If that reveals a center-right bias, then you SHOULD be aware that this is a problem with the voter, not so much any politician trying to represent said voter.
Let's be real here: American democracy isn't broken, it's exactly what the (white) American voter has consistently elected it to be.
edit: additionally, however, the people DID elect Hillary Clinton on a far more progressive platform than ever before, so it's not as if the voter isn't changing, but they're still stuck with the legacy of all the votes that came before (the EC, Senate, and everything else).
Indeed. Voting Biden in is only pushing the time table back for the smarter version of Trump assuming Biden can actually win. Needless to say Republicans have learned a lot about what they can get away with from these past four years.
I don't really understand how or why people need some sort of definitive answer on this. It's entirely relative, and any overarching statement has to be qualified to some degree. Of course compared to a typical western European democracy the mainstream Democratic party would be right wing. But what about the government of Poland? Hungary? As soon as you change the context, the conversation changes. So you can't say that we don't have a left wing party here in the US with no qualifiers, it's just nonsensical.
I don't mean vote the fascists out when I say remove them.
Republicans shifted the overton window to the far right and Dems are comparatively left to them. But on the whole, on their own merits, AOC is, unequivocally correct about Dems.
Not during crises, no.
Taking an anti austerity stance in a crisis is one of the biggest reason far right parties have been voted into power, prime example being the NSDAP.
No, that's exactly why i'm asking what this is supposed to mean ...
eyyy now we're talking
the middle class would definitely not be on board for that tho lol
Oh I agree. I have no faith in Biden beating Trump. I'd be happy if he did but like you said, I don't foresee him making things better. He just isn't going to be as awful as Trump, but that still paves the way for more Trumps in the future. We need to do more to prevent this.
I am not sure that the Democratic Party is right-wing compared to the average European party, given the average European country's dismal record on human rights for non-white migrants and refugees. But in any case, I agree that in a global sense, the Democratic Party is quite far left, since we believe in pluralistic democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, and oppose racial purges.
Yes, that's the danger of mass democracy in a nutshell.
Hasn't been run through the thread electoral college yet though
She's correct.
And as such, progressives/leftists need to understand that the Democratic party and Democrats are not progressives and never will be.
Leftists are wasting their time trying to convert the Democratic party into a progressive party.
And as such, progressives/leftists need to understand that the Democratic party and Democrats are not progressives and never will be.
Leftists are wasting their time trying to convert the Democratic party into a progressive party.
This is actually demonstrably wrong because the Dems continue to move leftward meaningfully and perceptibly just as the GOP smashes the Overton window with a swastika made of iron penises.
It'll take them twenty years of unimpeded (unlikely) success with that momentum to get somewhere as "communist" as modern West Germany but it's quite apparent. Especially to this immigrant from the "Red East."
With polls like these Bernie should be the runaway winner.
And yet. We know Era is a bubble.
This is one of those times.
You say this as we have open Socialists among us.
Like dude what the hell.
Only if you have a pea brain and don't understand nuance. It's mostly the older generations and conservatives with a vested interest in selling fossil fuels who peddle the idea that climate change is a myth. The rest of us can see what's going on with our own eyes.
I mean, I can say the same about the US!
Bernie and Warren overwhelmingly get the youth vote. Biden get's the olds.
The dems have never been far right.
Now you're just trolling.
They aren't truely Democrats though.
They're using the Democrat label because a 3rd party label doesn't bring name recognition or funding.
That's not what I said.
The Democratic party is largely moderate.
Splitting off would be a death sentence for both parties. Changing the Dems from within is the best path forward, as painful as it is.
Ok let me fix that.
The modern Democratic party has never been far right.
Social Democrats are center left, Dems are largely not Social Democrats.
Take this as you will. But it's fucked up when Cuba has a universal healthcare system under Fidel Castro.
While both Dems and GOP argue "How are we going to pay for it" when we try to introduce M4A or other attempts in Single Payers healthcare.
While both Dems and GOP argue "How are we going to pay for it" when we try to introduce M4A or other attempts in Single Payers healthcare.
No candidate will prevent a smarter Trump and/or a Republican from becoming president. This is asinine FUD from the progressives.
That doesn't seem like the kind of message that will motivate voters to the polls
This post does a good job of illustrating the unhelpful vagueness of this entire conversation. If you said "the Democratic Party is not composed of social democrats" nobody would have any disagreement.
While the Democractic party seems very much centre to centre-right, compared to the politics in my country (Austrian here), I will point out that these kinds of terms (left, centre, right) only ever make sense within the political system of a given country, so her sentence seems a bit strange when the only other political choice is the GOP, who are fine with proto-facism and white nationalism. Compared to the GOP, the Dems might as well be radical leftists
Seems like a reasonable statement to me. The top-polling presidential candidate is Joe Biden after all, and I've personally spoken to a lot of self-professed liberals who think Sanders and Warren are too far out there.
I don't think all democrat supporters are centrists, obviously. A lot of progressives get stuck with the Democrats by default because the republicans are fucking nuts and we're stuck in a two-party system seemingly forever. The conventional wisdom used to be that both parties drifted towards the center to poach each others' voters, but then Trump happened. I think a lot of democrats haven't really adjusted to our reality where conservatives are driving as hard right as they possibly can.
I don't think all democrat supporters are centrists, obviously. A lot of progressives get stuck with the Democrats by default because the republicans are fucking nuts and we're stuck in a two-party system seemingly forever. The conventional wisdom used to be that both parties drifted towards the center to poach each others' voters, but then Trump happened. I think a lot of democrats haven't really adjusted to our reality where conservatives are driving as hard right as they possibly can.
100%. These conversations quickly cease to make sense when they're not grounded in a specific country or region's political landscape. This conversation almost solely functions as a way to go, "I'm not like those people", which is fine, but simply saying Democrats are a centre right party doesn't describe what is going on.
Context is everything.
The Dems are center-left in America's context because every single democratic candidate, even the centrist ones, are pushing towards more government involvement in the economy to make it more equitable and have stood for the equality of all persons. What is that if not center-left?
You can't compare America to Europe because something that would seem radical in America would seem gradual in Europe and vice versa. Not many people are going to favor radical change anywhere in the world because radical change is scary.
The Dems are center-left in America's context because every single democratic candidate, even the centrist ones, are pushing towards more government involvement in the economy to make it more equitable and have stood for the equality of all persons. What is that if not center-left?
You can't compare America to Europe because something that would seem radical in America would seem gradual in Europe and vice versa. Not many people are going to favor radical change anywhere in the world because radical change is scary.
No, it won't. But it's wrong to suggest that the Dems as a whole aren't fighting for progress.
I love AOC but this is ridiculous.
This is a bullshit narrative which depresses turnout and demoralises the left. We'll be getting that anyway because the GOP exist outside of Trump, putting in Bernie Sanders won't make the Republicans cease to be an impactful political force in the US. Their reach is too entrenched for that. Vote for whoever wins in the general, not doing so helps Trump win. You're not going to get as many progressive reforms as you like with Bernie, either. The movement he created isn't that strong in congress.
