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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPresident Obama is a Republican from the 1930s to 1960s
The spectrum has shifted to the right. By the standards of the 1930s to 1960s, Obama is a center right president. So what? We ain't living in the 1930s and today's political center is today's political center.
I would note that this is only a shift on economics rightward. However, Obama would have made a good moderate Republican in the 1940s, at least economically.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)who won a second term in 2012.
Did I say: Third Way sucks?
I should have: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1969770
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)BrentWil
(2,384 posts)marmar
(77,127 posts)democrattotheend
(11,607 posts)Since the Democratic Party was the party of the racist south back then.
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)However, by the 1930s, the GOP had given up largely on really strong civil rights advocacy. In fact, many African Americans switched parities under FDR. However, even with that, the 1968 voting rights bill saw a higher percentage of GOP senators supporting it then Dems.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Just saying.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)But I am sure somebody will...entertaining...
And you are right and wrong.
Yes, it's shifted, but the definitions have not.
You have claimed to have taken poli sci, teach did a lousy job.
TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)...not a liberal or a progressive...
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)Center left to left... Dif more liberal then Bill Clinton.
TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)But I am liking Mr Obama's change to strength and steadfastness.
I am hoping that it continues - it has to for America to progress.
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)I think he is acting more liberal now to placate voters like you, in order to get a grand bargain. That's what he is after I think.
TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)BrentWil
(2,384 posts)The mix is the political battle. However, I think Medicare and SS are on the table. They have to be if you are talking thise numbera.I also think the President wants the debt ceiling off the table as a political issue.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"I think Medicare and SS are on the table. They have to be if you are talking thise numbera."
You're starting to sound like Boehner with an accent? WTH is that?
No they don't: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021969595
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)That said, the gOP is giving 1.2 trillion in tax increases at most. That leaves most of the other stuff to come from sending cuts. The only place to cut is entitlements and Defense, really.
"That said, the gOP is giving 1.2 trillion in tax increases at most. That leaves most of the other stuff to come from sending cuts. The only place to cut is entitlements and Defense, really."
...negotiating with your fantasy and deal with the facts:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021969595
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021967183
TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)Sniker... {and all sorts of face thingys}
TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)..must be to strengthen it.
No real Democrat would *ever* harm Social Security or Medicare. And if Democrats
in the House and Senate and a President *ever* harms these programs - that means
the Democratic party is no longer.
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)I guess the definitions of liberal and progressive are subjective to the individual...
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)But there is a whole range of liberal, which is left of center. Ranging from just left of center, to mid-left, to far left (which is progressive). Same thing for conservatives. Tea partiers being far right, who don't regard moderate Republicans, like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, as conservative, since they are not far right.
But Obama is, IMO, a certifiable liberal. Pro-gay rights, pro choice, pro-social program safety net, pro community programs, pro public school system, etc. All liberal positions. But he is not an activist. That's not his job. His job is to govern everyone and get bills enacted and handle emergencies, working with everyone from the far left to the far right.
I'm a liberal, but not a progressive. Progressives hate some of my moderate positions. But tea partiers regard me as a flaming wacko liberal who supports that muslim Hussein who was born in Kenya and wants to redistribute wealth.
The good thing about the Democratic Party is that it is a big tent that accepts more of a variety of positions than the other party. I do not consider myself a Democrat, though. I don't like the corruption of both parties.
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)Perhaps not in the past..
NYC Liberal
(20,138 posts)JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)Thanks to Republican fraudcasting, we now have a false center that is way to the right of where it would be without Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc.
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)I am a right winger in Norway. But we ain't in Norway.
The polital center of the country used to be to the left, economically. However, times change and we ain't living in 1940.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)BrentWil
(2,384 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)"I am a right winger in Norway. But we ain't in Norway."
Do you wish you were?
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)allrevvedup
(408 posts)the darkness is falling for a certain poster if he doesn't wise up. Just a word to the wise.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)This is not meant as an accusation. I accept that your views somehow became part of the big tent but I don't think that they are democratic, left, or even liberal (neoliberal certainly, but I consider neoliberlaism to be a conservative ideology.)
doc03
(35,454 posts)BrentWil
(2,384 posts)doc03
(35,454 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)allrevvedup
(408 posts)and let the Nixicons do wheelies on the WH lawn. I don't see the the comparison at all.
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)Ike ended active fighting in the Korean War.
allrevvedup
(408 posts)One striking feature of these wars has been the extension of bombing from a predominantly urban phenomenon to the uses of airpower directed against rural areas of Korea and Vietnam, leading the United States to breach another of international principles that had sought to curtail indiscriminate attacks on noncombatants. Beginning in Korea, US bombing was extended from cities to the countryside with devastating effects. In what Bruce Cumings has called the final act of this barbaric air war, in spring 1953 North Koreas main irrigation dams were destroyed shortly after the rice had been transplanted. [49]
http://japanfocus.org/-Mark-Selden/2414
Would you like to see a few pictures?
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)allrevvedup
(408 posts)2-4 million deaths in Korea, most civilian, and every major city destroyed vs. a few hundred civilian death a year with drones. Let's take Pakistan for example:
There's no comparison at all and to claim that Obama is to the right of Ike is perverse.
TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)And it has to stop.
doc03
(35,454 posts)Truman had a hand in flattening Korea too.
allrevvedup
(408 posts)took office Jan. 20, 1953, and signed the peace treaty at Panmunjom on July 27. So you have point.
http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-1960/2-korea/1-timeline/index.html
Note though that doesn't make the poster's claims legit, it just means Truman also had a terrible foreign policy.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)the Republicans of the '30's were isolationists and anti-New Deal believers in laissez-faire economics.
pnwmom
(109,025 posts)In the 30's to 90's, BOTH major parties had a large umbrella, ranging from conservative to liberal. Nelson Rockefeller, R, for example, was liberal; George Wallace, D, was not.
You are right that the spectrum has shifted strongly to the right, after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, along with changes in China.
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)There was an absolutely wider degree of thoughts within the party. However, I think it is wrong to suggest that in economic policy the Democratic Party wasn't distent from the GOP.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)How can gibberish (the OP) be a "true" statement.
The OP is fantasizing about cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021969825#post21), and trying to link his own right-wing identity to the President.
After a series of right-leaning post, it comes down to this: Cast President Obama as a 1930s Republican, but we "ain't living in the 1930s."
allrevvedup
(408 posts)Both left the US in dire straits as republicans tend to do. Can we please put this thoroughly anti-Democratic meme to rest or is this thread going to keep bobbing to the top all day with little whispers from Monsieur 3rd Way?
still_one
(92,528 posts)NYC Liberal
(20,138 posts)unblock
(52,503 posts)at some level, it's not really possible to say what's in obama's heart, or what would be in obama's heart if the political environment were different. had he been elected president in 1932, with conservative thought thoroughly trounced and discredited, and a public screaming for government help, would he have really acted like just another republican of that era?
i don't think obama is really a stark raving liberal, but i'm willing to bet that if the "center" were further to the left, so would obama.
at the end of the day, all you can really tell is which direction he's pulling us. obama is pulling us to the left, not the right, so all we can tell for certain is that he's to the left of today's center. he's savvy enough to know that if he started screaming for fdr-style spending, he wouldn't get anywhere these days.
it's a tricky game, taking a president out of the context of his presidency.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)Maggie Thatcher, when asked what she considered her greatest political achievement: "New labour"...
BrentWil
(2,384 posts)And people can effect shifts.
pampango
(24,692 posts)He is quite engaged with the rest of the world and sees the US as a member of a larger community of nations.
From the 1920's to the 1960's republicans opposed all of our peaceful multilateral commitments - membership in the League of Nations, and later the United Nations, and forming the International Trade Organization. Obama favors international solutions to international problems which often means working through the United Nations from which republicans want us to withdraw.
upi402
(16,854 posts)Some differences, but the continuum has shifted right.
Blame the media. Propaganda works.
Be careful stating the case that neither party fights to fix the media propaganda here, however.