How Many Here Love The Fact That We've Gone From Democratic Base... To "Far Left" ???

[Dragonfli]

89. Centrists are NOT and NEVER have been "a halfway point between far left and far right"

"What's halfway between trickle down economics and Keynesian economics?" was never the question the centrists were asking and was never their intention to find. Their stated goal and purpose is to find a center between right wing economic Reagan conservatism and left wing social justice issues, the never intended to temper the rights conservative excesses with liberal Keynesian solutions, they chose the entire right wing fiscal package and only wish to talk compromise on social issues. People need to know this enemy and their history, we must avoid the misconception tat they are anything other than Republican concerning fiscal policies as some would now have us believe.

A quick primer below: (there is much more to know about the 30 year "Reaganization" effort against our party which is responsible for shifted us so far to the right of center regarding all but social issues, but a few key facts should get the less politically informed started on understanding "Centrists" and how much damage has been done by them, I do believe these are things you already know Marr, so this is more for the less clued among us regarding the history and goals of the New Democrat right wing DLC infestation).

New Democrats, in the politics of the United States, are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are identified with centrist social/cultural/pluralist positions and neoliberal fiscal values. They are represented by organizations such as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrat Network, and the Senate and House New Democrat Coalitions.

After the landslide electoral losses to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was in need of a radical shift in economic policy and ideas of governance. The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists. They advocated a political "Third Way" as a method to achieve the electoral successes of Reaganism by adopting similar economic policies (Reagan Democrats and Moderate Republicans would provide burgeoning new constituencies after adding these new economic policies and politicians to our tent they contended) While hoping to retain, woman, minorities and other social issues allies with long ties to the party. Such would be their new Democratic coalition forged between fiscal right and social left under the "New" Democratic banner.

The term Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way was created as a serious re-evaluation of political policies within various centre-left progressive movements in response to international doubt regarding the economic viability of the state; economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularized by Keynesianism and contrasted with the corresponding rise of popularity for neo liberalism and the New Right. In a sense, 80s Moderate Republicans are almost identical to "Third Way" Democrats, one reason I found Obama's statement that he was, policy wise, closest to an 80's Republican refreshingly honest and at the time I gave him kudos for his honesty.