The country has only moved to the right after Republican victories. Democrats maintained the status quo. If Republicans are no longer a threat, we'll be left with the status quo and no longer have to worry about slipping further right.
Carter moved dems to right and away from labor protections. Clinton then continued by gutting social safety nets.
You're talking socially, which are wedge issues meant to divide the working class. I'm talking about economic policy in which democrats only move right.
Many of those social issues would not be a problem if our economic policies were taking care of our own. Look at history, racism has been used as a tool to shift the blame from the rich to minorities. Same shit is happening today, blame the guys, blame the immigrants. Instead of addressing the root cause, inequality, Dems give you piecemeal progress that they use like a carrot on a stick.
Dems will not save us unless we have a strong left opposition pushing them to do so. FDR only delivered the New Deal because labor was organized and winning, and if you actually look at policy in the new deal much of it was designed to weaken the labor movement that threatened the political power structure.
Dems will not just magically shift left, and this kind of magical thinking needs to be directly called out because it makes people think they have no control over the political situation. It just dilutes awareness.
There's plenty of rich racist people and wealthy black people still see racism from colleagues. Economics would do a lot, but they cannot solve everything.
It's also worth noting that the New Deal disproportionately helped white people and had policies which made institutional racism worse. As you point out with hurting organized labor, it really didn't do as much help as we think it did.
It is not enough to simply call for fixes to economic inequity. We need to be holistic. We gain nothing through economic reductionism.
This is a knowable thing that a bunch of us have personally witnessed since ‘76. Dems at the height of their power have not raced to deliver a full tranche of left legislation. Instead, they game to “not go too far,” and the GOP retakes because voters’ lives were not radically improved, and the difference between the parties isn’t particularly visible, beyond a few social issues.
Agreed. That's my hope too. Crush Republicans in November so they're no longer a player, and then have a moderate party and a progressive party.
We'll all get together on weekends to laugh at the tiny, impotent fascist party that remains, just to remind ourselves they're the enemy that needs to be kept in check. No German antics where moderates and progressives play off the fascists to get one over the other.
Is that really plausible? My understanding of the politics over there is that the two camps are so insanely deeply rooted that the mere thought of joining a split part from "the other side" would be unthinkable. Especially when we are talking about loving from the republican side. At least that's what my limited view here from Norway says.
It won't be plausible until it is. I expect it would happen fast. If support for Trumpism shrinks just a little, say by a few percentage points, suddenly they start losing a LOT more elections. Some people get tired of being losers and either stop voting, or start getting involved in Democratic primaries. As support dwindles further, people lose the social group of Republicanism, making it less and less attractive.
Interestingly, Trumpism started with Russian help by doing the opposite. They provided a social seed on r/the_donald and social media in general that allowed people to feel like part of a fun group. I believe the initial group was largely Russian, and they attracted grassroots support through memes and vigilant and quick banning of anyone expressing a contrary opinion. It took less than a year for Trump to go from being a joke candidate to being the Republican nominee.
I think it can fall, and it can fall fast. The last realignment of that caliber in the US was the Southern strategy in the 1960s and 1970s. And the stage is set. Most professional Republicans hate Trumpism, but go along with it in order to keep their jobs. The infighting can potentially make most of the party unelectable, and they know that. It's part of why they're lining up to kiss the ring. They have to get on board or the Democrats might run the next 20 years of American politics (which has also happened before, long, long ago.)
You'd have to be more of a history buff than I am to really know how plausible it is, but I'd advise ignoring the last 50 years and looking back more at historical political realignments for comparison.
I think the bigger problem though is the voting system we have here in the US. If one party split into two, it would basically guarantee wins for the other party.
The American right is bordering on fascism on the political spectrum. I don't say this to be dramatic or to make them look bad.
There's no way Republicans are shifting left with the current political environment. Republicans are rewarded for being outrageous but at the same time are ostracized if they step out of line with Trump.
The problem is that democrats are still center right, they've been pretty open lately (both party and voters) that they see leftists as a WAY bigger enemy than they ever have Republicans/MAGA.
