Why Liberals Lose

[Drunken Irishman]

34. Republicans win because America isn't the America we think it is.

It's still an America dominated by a small-government mindset. I don't think people understand how dramatic the nation shifted in the 80s when Ronald Reagan won the presidency. There was a transformation as a nation that turned spiteful toward the government, minorities and entitlements. It's why, during that stretch, liberal Democrats like McGovern (though he was before Reagan), Mondale and Dukakis not only lost - but lost badly at the presidential level. Hell, the Democrats even managed to lose the senate in the 1980s.

So, while people are quick to point to Obama and blame him - or blame Clinton - the reality is that liberals were losing long before either came onto the national scene. It didn't just change in 1992 with Clinton's election and it wasn't reaffirmed with Obama's reelection. The ideology was collapsing out of the Reagan Era and I'd wager it took those two politicians to save it.

Unfortunately, that's not the answer most want to hear. They want to blame the likes of Clinton and Obama and other so-called 'conservative' Democrats because it's the easiest answer without questioning the stark reality of America - it's not a liberal nation. Sure, if you nuance each point long enough, you'll get Americans to concede that they believe in Social Security and Medicare and a woman's right to choose, but you said it: the attention span isn't there for that.

So, instead, it comes down to buzz words. Well let's be honest, to most Americans, the idea of government scares 'em. It's scared 'em since the 1970s when they rejected the idea of big government.

That's where it started. Republicans were successful at portraying Democrats as big government, tax and spend liberals. It's what killed Michael Dukakis in a winnable presidential election and it even hurt John Kerry in 2004. As much as we want to pretend the country has moved away from that stereotype - they haven't. So, again, unless you nuance every position, it's hard to get across, successfully, anyway, an ideology that does support an increase in spending and a larger role of government.

Until you change the mindset of the American people, it won't matter who you put up - it didn't matter in the 70s and 80s, right? I mean, no one here would ever say McGovern or Mondale or Dukakis lost because they weren't left enough, or didn't do a good enough job distinguishing themselves from their opponent. It's also not a coincidence that Obama and Clinton, the two Democrats most here bemoan the most, are the only two who've successfully won reelection going all the way back to FDR (I guess you can throw in Truman, whose first term was almost entirely FDR's fourth). There is a reason for that. They've been able to rise above the typical caricature of a Democratic politician - out of touch, big government spender who just loves to tax.

Well, we witnessed in the 70s, 80s and 90s that Americans don't like that. We can fool ourselves and pretend they do - but every time the Democratic Party overreached in that regard, the Republicans came back and ran on small-government policies and won overwhelmingly - it helped 'em in '72, '80, '84, '88, '94, '00, '04 and '10.

You change that and then maybe you'll be able to change why liberalism continues to fail. But again, it's not fair to blame Obama or Clinton or any recent Democrat - this is a failure that's been in progress for the last 40 years. I mean, outside the Clinton & Obama presidencies, can anyone point to one liberal achievement we've seen since 1980? There aren't many - and let's be honest, that was long before Democrats supposedly lurched to the right.