StrangeSox

Well, if the best reason you can give a liberal or a leftist to vote for Democrats who don't hold any of their principles is "they're not Republicans (but they'll adopt their narratives and pass conservative legislation with little or no fight)," then I won't buy what you're selling.

I posted this elsewhere but it fits here nicely: If Obama doesn't cave, he'll take a beating politically. If he did that, there's no way he wins next year and that means we'll have a Republican in the White House. Can you imagine that?! Think of all the spending cuts they'll enact! They might even muster up enough strength to threaten Medicare or Medicaid! And there's no way they'd let the Bush tax cuts expire! And they certainly wouldn't have ended the Iraq and Afghanistan wars or closed Guantanamo, and who knows how many Muslim countries they'd be bombing right now.

Also this from Glenn In other words: it makes no difference to us how much we stomp on liberals' beliefs or how much they squawk, because we'll just wave around enough pictures of Michele Bachmann and scare them into unconditional submission. That's the Democratic Party's core calculation: from "hope" in 2008 to a rank fear-mongering campaign in 2012. Will it work? The ones who will determine if it will are the intended victims of that tactic: angry, impotent liberals whom the White House expects will snap dutifully into line no matter what else happens (even, as seems likely, massive Social Security and Medicare cuts) between now and next November. Democrats do not give a s*** about their base. They take them for granted. Continuing to vote for them just because they're not Republicans only reinforces this behavior. Challenge them in primaries, and if the more liberal candidate doesn't win, don't vote for the conservative Democrat.

You just keep conceding that all political discourse in this country can only be framed in conservative narratives and that it's a-ok for Obama to continually adopt those narratives. Every time he does that, he reaffirms the validity of their economic views instead of challenging it. The flip side to that, which is my position now, is that Obama's just another neoliberal. He's not challenging them because he really does accept the way they frame policy. He fully supports an austerity package. http://ggdrafts.blogspot.com/2011/08/email-to-john-cole.html

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 11:32 AM) Because he knew it had no chance of passing? Why waste the political capital by pissing off moderate dems? It would legitimize it as a valid viewpoint in healthcare discourse. Republicans always propose far-right ideas that make center-right ideas look centrist or moderate in comparison. When nobody argues for single-payer, then public exchanges get held up as an idea of crazy far-left socialist Marxists.

Obama actually laid out general policy guidelines in the summer of 2009 for HCR, and it notably did not include single-payer. He could have promoted that idea then. Why not?

You really don't think there's anything more that Obama could have done to press a liberal agenda? edit: "Obama sits on sidelines, gets s*** 'compromise' from conservatives" is kinda the story of his presidency. edit2: Obama actually laid out general policy guidelines in the summer of 2009 for HCR, and it notably did not include single-payer. He could have promoted that idea then. Why not? Are democrats incapable of seeing Republicans succeed repeatedly in pulling discourse to their viewpoints?

Why did Obama immediately rule out single-payer? Even if it's not a current possibility, there's still value in pushing for these positions, value you recognize yourself. It's something that Republicans are immensely more skilled at, and it's unrelated to their current insanity tactics.

Debt Deal Relief Rally!

It's reflecting the slew of terrible economic data lately.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 09:03 AM) And that's still more specific than a "Universal" system. Ok, then he never made the case for single-payer or nationalized health care. Instead he want straight to private insurance mandates.

Britain's a fully-nationalized health care system. That's different than a single-payer insurance system, like Canada.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 08:49 AM) But he started with universal healthcare and ended up coming back to the middle, "pulling" his position more to the left than what the country wanted, which was no additional government coverage. He never started with universal healthcare. Single-payer was off the table from the very start of the debate.

owns.

"in the future, a routine operation to deal with a stupid procedural functionality will be used as hostage against selling the country out to our s*** agenda" this is probably the worst outcome.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 06:42 PM) Your killing me smalls!!!!!!! Does what he's saying about market spreads (there's several more posts by him in the past several days on the same issue if you're at all curious) make sense?

Krugman's been saying to keep an eye on Italy, too!

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 04:53 PM) I'd also add that while I find your guys' view interesting, seems to me you're ignoring the part where the majority of the country considers itself moderate. To a certain extent Obama HAS to be moderate to gain reelection. A small minority of people want the government to be progressive, a small minority wants the country to be ubber conservative. In reality the vast majority want business as usual with little to know change in their personal lives. I've not said it explicitly but the problem there (from my perspective) is that lack of advocacy for a liberal position. I'm no political science expert, but I generally accept the theory behind the Overton Window. When Obama immediately caves to the conservative economic narrative, it means the entire mainstream political discourse in the country gets shifted to the right. Since this is already a center-right country, it only makes it that much harder to make a case against austerity packages or for universal healthcare or any other liberal positions that have been thrown under the bus by Obama.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-02/d...my-falters.html

Funny how all of a sudden the media is noticing that austerity budgets in the middle of a stalled recession are actually a bad thing. Too bad they never bothered to press politicians on this over the last two months.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 04:38 PM) Why is "The deficit is causing unemployment" an easier argument to make than "We need to hire people to do stuff!" People are only worried about the deficit because both parties have come together and agreed that it is the problem that is causing unemployment and needs to be dealt with. Until this deficit hysteria started, no one was worried about the deficit, nor should they have been...they were worried about being jobless. People are more than willing to make the 2nd argument...it just gets consigned to the sidelines. Unless the person with the bully pulpit makes it, no one listens. Exactly. There was no reason that the Democrats had to instantly adopt the rhetorical positions of the Republicans. If neither party will push back again the "ZOMG deficits! CUT CUT CUT!" hysteria (or insert any other liberal positions Democrats refused to advocate), how on earth are you supposed to organize a legitimate liberal primary challenge?

More people were worried about jobs. Most people wanted a deal with revenues. You do not have to get technocratic to explain why austerity measures would be disastrous while pro-jobs bills would help the economy and the deficit at the same time. You don't have to take your option to fix the problem off the table from the start. Instead, they fought for a package to the right of what the public wanted. What you're saying is that Democrats have no choice but to give in to conservative narratives over and over again. If they do that, of course the country will keep moving further and further to the right.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 04:18 PM) You could primary that bad candidate to the left. But the left doesn't do that enough. Let's say that a liberal primary challenger runs but loses and ultimately doesn't get substantial policy changes from the winner. Should I still vote for that Democrat?

You've got one example of someone being pushed to back derivatives legislation shortly after derivatives made the world economy collapse. That's sort of a once-in-a-lifetime or at least once-in-a-decade situation where a majority of the voters are going to be strongly aligned with liberal policy preferences that a particular Democrat candidate doesn't support. None of this addresses my initial comment that liberals can easily feel pretty disaffected right now because Democrats have not offered even token resistance to conservative policy narratives, thus making it that much harder for liberals to make their case to the public at large. When you don't have the President out there advocating against and explaining why a large austerity plan is a bad idea, but instead coming up with his own plan, how do you expect a liberal primary challenger to gain enough traction to sway enough moderate and conservative Democrats to back them?

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 04:05 PM) "she all of the sudden became the world's biggest derivative regulation backer" Wait a second I'm not arguing against running liberals in primaries. I'm arguing against voting to bad Democrat candidates just because they're not Republicans.