Why do some on the Left keep saying that Pres. Obama is "center-right"?

[BlueStreak]

51. That isn't exactly how I see it. The NRA thing has laid bare the state of our "democracy"

The people are in favor of background checks 90-10. What issue have you ever seen 90+% approval on? Yet most Republicans and a lot of Democrats are still blocking that. The people are in the right place, for the most part. Issue by issue, the public supports the progressive position strongly: 60% to 70% or more. The problem is not with the people. The problem is that our system is among the most corrupt in the entire world. We send election watchers to Kenya, but they probably have less election rigging than we have every single time. And the power of money in our system is inescapable.

I do agree with you that real change may require a much greater display of anger on the part of the public. But I don't necessarily believe that it will take riots in the streets to change.

The key thing is getting control over the SCOTUS and the House. We are only 15 seats away from controlling the House. Barring a lot of help from the actuarial gods, Obama won't be able to replace any of the evil 5 on the SCOTUS, but the next President will. America's demographics are changing quickly. Obviously there is a lot of Hispanic vote and the GOP has done everything possible to turn them off. They are anti-woman. Their only real support is old white men. And they have a SERIOUS problem with the generations coming up behind today's old white men. They just aren't going to fall into place for the Republicans.

At this point, I'd speculate the most likely ticket for the Dems in 2016 is Hillary and Julian Castro. If not Castro, another Hispanic of stature. Even with the best of Republican vote rigging, I think that would be a formidable ticket. And if that were to win, we would be assured of putting a real dent in the SCOTUS problem. From there it would take another 10 years to start to repair the damage that Scalia and friends of done to our democracy. But it can be done.