What's The Matter With The Democratic Party? [View all]

[stupidicus]

I think the majority of us here can answer that question, and think it's more about intentions and design than the happenstance some excuse it with.

Allow me to drop a single, disturbing data point on this march of science. You might recall that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives from the early 1930s until 1994 with only two brief Republican interludes. What ended all that was not an ill-advised swerve to the left, but the opposite: A long succession of moves toward what is called the “center,” culminating in the administration of New Democrat Bill Clinton, who (among other things) signed the Republicans’ NAFTA treaty into law. Taking economic matters off the table was thought to be the path of wisdom among expert-worshipping Washingtonians, but it had the unforeseen consequence of making culture that much more important for a large part of the population. Democrats were eventually swamped by all the crazy grievance campaigns of the right, which has splashed back and forth in the mud of the culture wars ever since. http://crooksandliars.com/2014/09/thomas-frank-whats-matter-democratic-party

The recent rise in rightwingnuttery imo, and most notably that of the Tea Party, has served this cause by pushing the already well off center ideological dividing line in DC further to the right, and increased the dread on both sides of that line over the alternative. The so-called centrist dem now looks more like a saint and savior than the sinner they often are in terms of lefty causes. That's the primary motivator so many balk at -- "Vote for us, or suffer through the alternative!!!".

That's the kinda stuff enthusiasm is made of, ain't it?