Hillary Clinton Is A Progressive Democrat, Despite What You May Have Heard

[yallerdawg]

Here’s what people would be saying about her if she wasn’t running against Bernie Sanders.

Source: Jonathan Cohn, HuffPo

If Sanders is the standard by which you’re going to decide whether a politician is a progressive, then almost nobody from the Democratic Party would qualify. Take Sanders out of the equation, and suddenly Clinton looks an awful lot like a mainstream progressive — firmly on the left side of the American ideological spectrum and maybe on the left side of the Democratic Party’s, as well.

One reason it’s easy to miss this is that Clinton’s domestic policy agenda doesn’t include one signature idea or position that’s going to dominate the headlines or get activists excited. Instead, it’s a series of proposals that, together, would fortify the social safety net, strengthen regulation of industry, and bolster public services. To the extent these programs require new spending, the money would largely come from new taxes on the wealthy.

And if you can count on Clinton to be responsive to Wall Street, you can also count on her to be responsive to unions, environmental groups, advocates for children and for women’s rights — groups that will continue to push her in a progressive direction if she ends up in the White House. The same goes for the hordes of progressive voters who have backed Sanders in the primaries. If they make noise, Clinton is going to listen.

That’s arguably happening already, thanks to the strong campaign that Sanders has run. This is how political change happens! But once the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is over, the dynamics are bound to shift. It’s easy to forget now, but the right wing has spent most of Clinton’s time in public life portraying her as a extreme liberal, or even a socialist. As soon as the primaries are over, those attacks will start again — and some ambivalent progressives may decide they like Clinton after all.

Read it all at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-progressive_us_572cca08e4b0bc9cb0469098

[MrMickeysMom]

1. Do you think Bernie Sanders can only restore the voter's memories?

I don't think it works that way. I think we pretty well can't erase history simply based on who might be running against her.

[NewImproved Deal]

2. What does "Progressive" mean to the Clinton Machine?

This?

[link:|

[vintx]

3. LOL!

Good one!

[Joob]

4. Hah ok then

[pangaia]

5. The unintentional sarcasm of this post is... well, entertaining, to say the least.

[Broward]

6. I'm sure that's her sales pitch to those Bush donors she's so fond of.

[HereSince1628]

7. That statement becomes questionable at the third word. What s the meaning of is

for the purpose of this discussion?

It gets really messy on progressive as an adjective and democrat as a noun with specific attributes.

[mikehiggins]

8. We'll see in November. By then I suspect all of the Sanders people fears will be realized

and Her Highness will have reverted to her Wall Street favoring, neo-con, war mongering ways.

Just an opinion, of course.

[RufusTFirefly]

39. Don't fret. It will be explained away as some form of multidimensional chess...

... that we're just too obtuse to grasp.



Besides, we'll be castigated for raising any objections. In the name of party loyalty, doncha know.

[thelordofhell]

9. Hillary has done more for Women's Rights as SOS..........

Than Bernie has done for anyone in his history of being in the Senate.......

[hobbit709]

15. Like ISIS in Libya?

[bahrbearian]

24. Like what she did for Berta Cáceres ,

Before Her Assassination, Berta Cáceres Singled Out Hillary Clinton for Backing Honduran Coup

[bvar22]

28. Does that include the innocent Women of Iraq and Libya who have been killed in the most

horrible of ways, or had the children torn to pieces by our Freedom Bombs,
or the MILLIONS who have been displaced and are now forced to live under horrible conditions in "camps"?

Did you know that before Hillary "helped" Libya, it was the most advanced country in Northern Africa with many rights for women?
Women could have their own money, own and sell property, own and drive cars, wear blue jeans in public, go to clubs and dance at night, own and run businesses?
Did you know that?

Now that Hillary has "helped" them, they have been put back under Sharia Law.
This billboard dictating how women MUST now dress has been posted throughout Libya:


I wonder how many Thank You notes the women of Libya have sent to Hillary.

...but, of course, the women of the Middle East are brown, so they don't count.

[yallerdawg]

33. I forgot how you all consider Hillary...

the most powerful entity on the planet!

I thought all this was American policy - right or wrong - but it's really all Hillary.

Amazing.

[bvar22]

45. Hillary was a strong advocate for REgime Change including the use of military force in Libya.

As Secretary of State, Hillary was extremely powerful. Without her advocacy, there would have been no "regime change" in Libya.

[AzDar]

46. Odd how she's not responsible for all the negative shit/ wrong decisions ...but anything positive,

(and there really isn't much, imnsho)...why, it's ALL Hillary's doing.

[silvershadow]

10. This lifelong Union labor FDR Democrat will defer to my own judgement. nt

[JonLeibowitz]

11. No mention of the vast gulf that exists between them on foreign policy

Hmm, could it be that such facts didn't fit the narrative the author was going for?

Military interventionism, war, regime change, and a generally 'muscular' foreign policy don't sound very progressive.

What a joke.

[Eric J in MN]

12. Her 'response' to environmentalists

...is to promote the myths of "clean coal" and "safe fracking."

[Dragonfli]

30. Ahh, clean coal...

[kaleckim]

13. God, what drivel

What is the type of person that reads these articles and is logically convinced, I mean other than someone that wants to believe this silly stuff and doesn't need much convincing? She's progressive if you ignore her actual record, her top donors, her constant fund raising with corporate and Wall Street lobbyists, her current recruiting of Bush's Wall Street backers, her hawkish foreign policy and her consistent corruption. Basically, if you cherry pick her record and really focus hard on words she says in a speech, she's very "progressive". Maybe, to make arguments like this easier, we can just radically change the definition of progressive. Like we don't require evidence that this person's policies actually lead to progress and don't factor in when the opposite happens, even if that is the case the overwhelming majority of the time. Might help to also to ignore what it has meant historically to be on the actual left, doubly since both parties have moved so well to the right that Sanders' positions (right in the middle of popular opinion and mainstream 50 years ago) are now considered radical, when they clearly aren't.

[hobbit709]

14. She's about as progressive as Nixon.

[Exilednight]

16. allow me .....

"If Sanders is the standard by which you’re going to decide whether a politician is a progressive,"

He is.

"Then almost nobody from the Democratic Party would qualify."

They don't.

Despite the fact that our elected party members have shifted right, the definition of progressivism did not shift with it.

[Eric J in MN]

18. Yes. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has only one Senator.

That Senator is Bernie Sanders. So it makes sense to consider his positions in deciding who is a progressive.

[jalan48]

17. Yeah, and Reagan was a liberal too.

[CrowCityDem]

19. You can't use history as an etched-in-stone benchmark.

The fact that the entire party might be a bit less to the left does not mean that a solidly left-leaning Democrat today is really a Republican. Republicans have shifted so far to the right that there is truly no comparison.

It would be unfair to say that Republicans are the better party for minorities, since Lincoln was one, and it's unfair to say that today's Democrats aren't Democrats based on what the part was seventy years ago. We live in the here and now, and given where the parties are, Hillary is most definitely a progressive Democrat.

[yallerdawg]

21. We won't hear from Republicans how far to the right she is!

"But Sanders’ position on the outer ideological edges of the Democratic Party is also a reminder that context matters."

We are anticipating the primary nastiness is just in support of the candidate of our choice in the primary. It creates real passion and deeply felt aspiration.

Then - especially when we start to hear what the Republicans have to say regarding our nominee - it all gets back to context.

[bvar22]

34. If FDR, JFK, RFK, or LBJ rose from the grave and listened to Hillary,

they would ALL agree that she was a hard right Republican.

I know, because I AM a Mainstream-Center FDR/LBJ Democrat
who is NOW being labeled as a Far Lefty, Fringe Democrat.
I haven't changed.

I STILL believe the following:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be[font size=3] established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.[/font]

Among these are:

*The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

*The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

*The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

*The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

*The right of every family to a decent home;

*The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

*The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

*The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

[font size=3]America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.[/font]

Please note that the above are stipulated as Basic Human RIGHTS to be protected by our government,
and NOT as COMMODITIES to be SOLD to Americans by For Profit Corporations.


Does that sound like Hillary to you.
Have you EVER heard her advocate for ANY of the above?

Sounds like Bernie to me.
I get flashes of the enthusiasm and hope we felt for the Democratic party in the 60s when I hear Bernie speak.
We weren't perfect, but we WERE headed in the right direction, and moving the ball, sometime with leaps and bounds like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Medicare/Medicaid, the War on Poverty (back when Democrats acknowledged there were poor people).

I get NONE of that from Hillary.
Sometimes I'm glad I'm old and can remember the Democratic party in which I grew up.
Then I can laugh at people like the OP, and pity them at the same time.

[yallerdawg]

36. That highlighted stuff. That does sound like Hillary.

You just aren't listening.

[PufPuf23]

41. No you are clueless and deep into the koolaid. Thanks Bvar, eom

[bvar22]

49. No. YOU are confused.

Every time Bernie brings up one of the basic Human RIGHTS listed by FDR,
Hillary's response is:

[font size=4]"NO. WE. CAN'T!"[/font]

Does that ring a bell?

[DCBob]

20. Good article.. I am sure it will fall on deaf ears here.

[yallerdawg]

22. I take it they won't be voting for Hillary - ever.

Oh well...

[whatchamacallit]

23. connerie

[colsohlibgal]

25. Blah Blah Blah

I expect her to be largely socially liberal but her cracking down at all on Wall Street, cranking down the perpetual wars, peeling back the security system....I will believe it when I see it and doubt I will see it.

And for profit healthcare....draining folks of their life savings and bankrupting them as a bonus to having cancer....it is unconscionable and dastardly. Will she even try to change this awful dynamic? I doubt it.

She will not be able to change all that by herself, I know. But I doubt she will even strongly advocate for it in office.

i am still livid as well over all the so called democrats who voted yes on an unprovoked war on Iraq. We will be paying in every way possible for that war through our lifetime and beyond, trillions down the drain along with lost or shattered lives.

[Vinca]

26. If Hillary was a progressive, people wouldn't need to be told she was over and over again.

[yallerdawg]

27. This is "Democratic Underground."

We have to constantly remind the posters here what is a Democrat and what is a progressive and what is a liberal.

There seems to be some kind of endless confusion.

[Eric J in MN]

47. +1 (NT)

NT

[Dragonfli]

29. .

Thanks so much, I needed a good laugh right now. We need more satire n this site!

The author is a corporate finance guy in favor of less taxation of Corporations, as if that matters to conservatives that use the Overton window to rationalize right as center and center as "fringe left"

The Overton window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas the public will accept. It is used by media pundits.

Even though the evidence from national polls show Sanders positions fall well within that window and according to those same polls, if one were to use such a tactic to re-define the true meanings of right and left, the same poll evidence places her firmly on the Right and Sanders well within that window of discussion and nowhere near "extreme left" but rather to the center left of that Window.

I therefore applaud your very funny and excellent satire as it is quite clever!

Jonathan B. Cohn

Associate Professor of Finance
McCombs School of Business
The University of Texas at Austin

[yallerdawg]

32. Bernie is "center left."

Now that IS funny!

[Dragonfli]

38. That is true, Right and Left have well defined and firm meanings.

To open your mind, in some countries there are a few extreme leftists, but not in the US.

An example of the 2015 parties in the UK with regards to the actual meaning of words such as "left" and "right" in a political context




Now the US 2016 election



You will of course ignore such inconvenient truths, just as I shall now ignore you.

Too bad, I actually thought you were a Satirist, a rather good one at that.

[boomer55]

42. Cool! Where can I get the original on this?

[Dragonfli]

43. Here:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/ they rate globally and have no dog in the fights.

[yallerdawg]

51. Fair and objective, are they?

I sense a subjective opinion...

Style more than substance separates Trump from Hillary Clinton. After all, Trump was a generous donor to Clinton's senate campaigns, and also to the Clinton Foundation. Hillary is nevertheless disingenuously promoting herself as the centrist between an extreme right-winger (Trump) and an 'extreme left-winger' (Sanders). Abortion and gay marriage place her on a more liberal position on the social scale than all of the Republicans but, when it comes to economics, Clinton's unswerving attachment to neoliberalism and big money is a mutual love affair.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

[Dragonfli]

52. Yes.

Why am I still seeing your neoliberal rationalizations and Brockian spin? I must have forgotten to put you on ignore, I will take care of that promptly.

Their methodology is well developed and respected world wide. You read a small bit of editorializing attempting to explain our uniquely fucked up political process but the analysis is correct. You must have taken all this time to find it, but to no avail by the way, as I think the editorial opinion is absolutely correct, as will others that are not drunk on false narratives and propaganda kool-aid.

goodbye and good luck, you will need it if you have such difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction.

Now on to the chore of finding and pushing that full ignore button...

[kaleckim]

54. Can you name a position he takes

that places him outside of popular opinion on an issue, especially an economic issue? How, in a democratic form of government, is that not "centrist"? If we look at this in an authoritarian way, we'll see which positions are in the middle of elite opinion, and ignore if that aligns with or is well to the right of popular opinion on the actual issues. He is center-left, and his positions used to be mainstream within the party he is running in right now. The fact that the Democrats have moved so far right that he is considered a radical is telling.

[TimPlo]

31. See you all think Progressive means

That she is Progressive towards being a Liberal. But that is not the case when people say Clinton is Progressive they mean in how she uses Campaign finance laws and stretches they to new heights never seen before. He 2008 Senate race raised more money than any other Senate Race, and yet she was going against a GOP in a state that had a D senator since 1970s. And now in 2016 primary she has found more and creative ways to bypass campaign laws with out actually doing anything illegal. Some of you might not like this but there are at least 1% of Americans that call this Progress.

[Armstead]

35. How can she be equally responsive to two opposing forces?

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. No she isn't.

[boomer55]

40. That word you're using doesn't mean what you think it does.

[RufusTFirefly]

44. CNN: Clinton 'pleads guilty' to being a moderate

CNN: Clinton 'pleads guilty' to being a moderate

Which is she? Egads, I haven't been this confused since I saw Chinatown

Besides, if she's such an advocate for children, how come her "mentor," Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, won't support her?

[mcar]

48. K&R

[pat_k]

50. To the right of Nixon doesn't exactly qualify as "progressive."

The Democratic establishment has moved so far to the right they don't qualify as "progressive."
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/197334-obama-nixon-was-more-liberal

You show your values by what you are willing to stand up for -- not your rhetoric. By that measure, there are few very few who actually qualify as progressives in the House, Senate, and other positions of power.

When it comes to showing the courage of their conviction to progressive values, the Democratic establishment has engaged in a consistent pattern of preemptive surrender: Can't win, so don't fight. Oh no! Someone might say bad things about us!

Their repeated demonstrations of weakness sows hopelessness and cynicism. It's the reason Democrats have been losing ground. The injuries are self-inflicted.

When will they realize that standing up for principle, win or lose, is the only way they can redeem themselves and inspire voters to come out and vote for them?

Even Bill Clinton "got it" once upon a time when he said: "When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody, who's weak and right."

When will they realize that "strong and right" is the only way to win the day over "strong and wrong"?

"Progressive" my ass.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

53. Hillary is to "progressive what a Twinkie is to nutrition or decaf is to coffee.

[betsuni]

55. K&R