Yeah, in a lot of ways I have a hard time seeing it as well. Let's look at a few issues:

• Gay marriage -- just don't see how this is a leftist issue. It's more libertarian than anything. Nobody is forcing churches or religious institutions to perform the ceremonies, so I just don't see it as some leftist attack on "traditional values."
• Military policy -- The nominee in 2016 was Hillary, a freaking neocon when it came to the use of the military. I don't see how any peace loving lefty could have supported her with that.
• Affordable Care Act -- When it comes to health care reform, this is a pretty far step away from a lefty's dream of nationalized health coverage (like damn near every other first world country has....). Forcing people to purchase a private insurance policy from a private carrier....seems like a solution that's terribly imperfect but leaves much more power to some industries than nationalizing care would.
• Prison reform -- Calls from the left to decriminalize and reduce sentencing sure seems pretty fiscally conservative to me considering what it costs to house prisoners & the fact we've locked up a lot of non violent folks.
• Racial issues -- Let's face it, this one is more complicated than right vs. left. We've always had a vocal segment of our population claiming we're not a racist society and ignoring the racist history of our country, ignoring the fact this country was built on the backs of minorities, not recognizing a complicated issue takes a lot more time to heal from than the passage of a few pieces of legislation. There will always be a part of the population standing against those who call out the ills of a society. It doesn't make them flaming racists (perhaps just ignorant of how complicated the issues are), but it also doesn't make those calling for recognition of racial disparities militant leftists either.

i'm watching the kansas gubernatorial race. it's democrat v republican in a state that's 2/3 republican, but they grew pretty weary of brownback republicanism in practice in their state. 4 running for the democratic spot. quite a wide gap in their views. meanwhile, if kobach wins the republican primary it'll be a case of kansan republicans purging the party of those outside their narrow trumpist viewport.

if it's, say, laura kelly versus kris kobach - a fair chance it will be - i think that'll be an interesting race in kansas. it'll be centrist versus extremist, with the democrat the centrist.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Other than Bernie Sanders I haven’t seen anything from the dems in a long time. The republicans have pretty much been pushing dickish ideas- so that’s what it’s come down to in most races; do you vote for the empty shirt or the dick

Dan...WADR you're a progressive white male who lives in Southern California and voted for HRC. You have stated (threatened) folks on this very forum with strong arguments for California-esque gun control..."or else". You generally respond to the right wing loony toons with denigrations ("you're filled with hate!") and disregard lefty loonies. I'm guessing (please correct me if I'm wrong) you consume a diet of primarily progressive media (CNN, NPR, HuffPo, NYTimes).

It's fairly reasonable to believe that you think that the Democrats aren't moving left and are more 'moderate'.

It's also fairly reasonable to think that an older white gentleman who lives in rural Utah, who voted for Trump, and thinks that marriage should "be between a man and a woman" and consumes 100% Fox News thinks that the Repubs are the moderate party.

From the left, the left seems moderate. From the right, the right seems moderate.

Most folks who identify as independents (and who have done since before Obama) believe in smaller government, equality (of humans and opportunity), the Constitution as written, property rights and individual freedoms. These folks generally see both parties as veering lefter or righter, respectively, regardless of what Donny tweets on any given day.

I mention this only because I see right wingers claiming to be moderates but then condemning gay marriage. Then left wingers claim to be moderates but argue for CA-like firearm regulations and government run healthcare.

Right now it's "in vogue" to identify as an independent/moderate when in reality you're a dyed in the wool progressive or conservative.

Most people who think they're moderate....aren't. As such, they don't see their respective parties as veering left or right.

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My training

If not for the meddling of the DNC, you would have had a socialist as the Democratic candidate for president. I suppose you could say that because the DNC meddled, that's proof that they're not moving left so this may be one of the very rare times that I agree with you.

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I miss YaHey

your evidence?


that part you nailed. just, remember, i live in what has been a solid republican district at local, state and national levels, so, no, i don't think your attempt to paint me into your bubble idea of who i am succeeds here.


no doubt. but one state up lives a former VP who now no longer believes that. urban utah has one of the most vibrant gay communities in the country. so, yeah, there's a white man in the rural south for whom keeping blacks separate from whites seems moderate. i agree with you that "moderate" is a moving target if you look at it from that perspective.


fair point. but i think this is healthy. what we need more of are those who break from party orthodoxy. and that is my point. the democratic party is not "moving left". yes. you're right. the democrats have candidates who are very pro-gun and also very pro-gay rights. who are free traders who believe health care is a right, not a privilege.

the more operative truth is that the republican party is erecting purity tests and the democrats are discarding them.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Dan’s a conservative.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

well, that's like saying if the russians hadn't meddled hillary would've been president. we just don't know. what i see, today, is that one democrat got primaried by a bernie candidate. so much for the move left.

bernie was the 90 percenter's good angel. bernie was trump without the nationalism and bigotry. their appeals were strikingly similar. not their platforms (except for protectionism). their appeals. what does truly mystify me is how the democrats have not been able to distill and project that "we're on the side of the working man" argument.

i was wrong. i was all for a corporate tax cut. i championed that. and look what happened: wages, in an era of 4 percent unemployement, remain stagnant, while corporate profits are thru the roof, and stock buybacks are the result of that tax cut. it's unprecedented that your wage remains the same at that level of unemployment. never happened before.

so, this is bernie's point precisely. how the democrats can't capitalize on that is gods own mystery. neverheless, bernie's voice remains a minority voice in the party as reflected by results in the 2018 primary. however, the democratic party appears sufficiently elastic to include ocasio-cortez and lamb.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Oversimplify much? HRC won the primary by more than Obama did (and she was a terribly flawed candidate). A better moderate candidate would have won going away. The Dems have almost always rejected the far left candidate (Kennedy/Kucinich/Jackson/Nader/Sanders/...).

You're kidding, right? Then what the hell was that whole, rigging the election to screw Bernie Sanders out of the nomination?

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Some fair points there.

RE your 'progressive' creds...see my previous post. A few examples there.

RE purity tests: I think you're wrong there...for example "Abolish ICE" is quickly becoming one in lefty circles. Per NPR Kamala Harris supports it now...likely out of fear that if she didn't that the left wingers wouldn't consider her left enough. The right wingers have plenty themselves and they're equally as ridiculous. I do have a few...I personally don't think someone can consider themselves a moderate if they are:

1) Anti-choice RE abortion
2) Consider California firearms laws reasonable
3) Against gay marriage
4) Pro "war-on-drugs" (a portion of which being against legalization of MJ)
5) Pro government-run-healthcare

That's my personal list of things that I think disqualify folks as being moderates (independents, libertarians, thinkers....whatever) off the top of my head. I think you meet 2 of those. They're products of the thought process based off of the principles I mentioned earlier.

Anyways...back to your OP...yes, the left is going harder left. I think burning shit to shut down someone else's speech, attacking folks on the street, "abolishing" or "banning" things regardless of efficacy....pretty loony toon stuff. The widespread presence is new in the last few years.

Almost as loony toon as the right wingers going after marchers, carrying AR's in public as a "f you", attacking abortion docs, etc. Unfortunately this isn't that new. Right has always been pretty far right and while I think they're lurching further right...but not as much.

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My training

A Democratic Socialist, not a Socialist. They’re two different things. We already have elements of Democratic Socialism, as does every Western nation, and Sanders advocates expansion of such. The fear mongering McCarthyism cries of “Socialist Commie!!!” are laughably inaccurate.

OK, then we agree that both parties are fairly radical when they have power. It's just a matter of timing RE right vs left.

Ideologically they're both assholes. Agreed.

I'm all for abolishing the electoral college...that would certainly fix it.

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My training

Yea, there is absolutely no evidence that at all. Sanders was an incredibly weak general election candidate, Hillary beat him by almost 3 million votes in the Democratic primary alone. That was with Hillary treating him with kid gloves, Trump would have had been able to absolutely pummel him with his comments on Cuba or the Sandinistas. He would have also probably done worse with Black voters (and black women specifically) that were huge for Clinton, then Clinton and that would have been deadly, would not have made up for the white male votes he could have possibly taken from Trump. Would those white males go for him when his pro communist comments were brought up?

Could Sanders have beat Trump, possibly it was such a close election, but Clinton had a much better chance to beat Trump.

I think the democrats are moving a bit to the left, at least in lots of very strong democratic areas. I think the 2020 canidate will be a bit more left than Clinton, not much, but a bit. I say this because I expect that the candidate will have a single issue, like free college or something, that is to the left of Clinton.

While you may not see it, how do you explain so many moderates voting for Trump?

I don't know whether the entire party is moving to the left, but they've embraced identity politics and elements of the extreme left to the extent that many centrist Democrats have chosen not to vote in key places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. My wife, who's a pretty liberal Democrat, remarked at the end of the 2016 Democratic Convention about speech after speech of identity politics and the embrace of the most progressive elements of the Party while there seemed to be a distinct lack of representation of traditional Democratic voting strongholds - like unions. Living here in DC, and knowing a great many folks very much involved at very senior levels in the Obama administration and Democratic Party, the attitude prior to the election was that it would be a cake walk. I can't say I held vastly different views and even assured my nervous friends on the traditionally very conservative Eastern Shore of Maryland there was no way Trump could win. Shows what I know. Whether that was a consequence of a leftward shift or not, I am not sure, but I would assert ignorance of the traditional centrist Democratic forces may have had a hand in this.

As we gear up towards the mid-terms and 2020, I don't believe the Trump folks' assertions either that the Dems are moving to the left, however, as you look at who seems to be emerging as potential candidates for the White House, it's hard to say they are moving to the center. The problem with both parties, in my opinion, is that the loudest, shrillest voices have seemed to carry the day thus far. The difference has been the loudest, shrillest voice on the right managed to eke out an Electoral College victory.

Will be interesting to see how this develops.

I'd say certainly moving left, but I think the country is, with the exception of an ever-shrinking piece of the pub party. Problem for dems is that the energy is mostly from the extremes, and that faction is growing. Very similar to the TEA party problem that caused so much grief for the pubs over the last several years. Here's a couple of observations from a piece out today:

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"As recently as 2007, trade unions and a large chunk of the party’s congressional wing were hostile to immigration reform. Senator Sanders voted against a bill in 2007 that would have given a path to citizenship for 12m undocumented people, on the basis that the proposal also allowed companies to bring in guest workers, undermining unions. On gay marriage, too, as recently as 2008 neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama were prepared to endorse a position that is now so thoroughly mainstream for Democratic candidates that they seldom mention it."
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" Democratic senators have recently proposed plans for universal single-payer health care, free college tuition, a national $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee for those unable to find employment. This last measure alone could increase the federal government’s payroll tenfold. The senators usually spoken of as contenders for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020—Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders—have all endorsed some or part of this. Twenty years ago a Democratic president declared that the era of big government was over. Now it seems to be back."
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https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/07/14/should-the-party-move-to-the-left-or-to-the-centre

You may not see it but lots of other people do.
https://www.google.com/...urther-left.amp.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/...the_left_442626.html
https://www.google.com/...-ryan-saavedra%3famp
https://www.google.com/...her-to-the-left/amp/

Can you link that article?

Hey you Ballwashers keep provoking The Leftist Base and we'll give you 8 years of the Ocasio-Cortez / Pocahontas ticket. :)

So learn to tone down all that hate and vitriol. :)

Damn, dude. Get out of my head.
Recently I've been saying each party is tone deaf. By that I mean they only see the bad in the opposite party and their party can do no wrong.