2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Poll: Had enough of Obama, yet? [View all]MrSlayer
(22,143 posts)Reagan is the father of modern American fascism and yet on several important issues he seems more enlightened and left leaning than Obama in retrospect. Richard Nixon was flat out liberal in comparison.
This is bad. We have to stop pretending that we aren't being sold down the river by our "own" people. There hasn't been one President on the side of the People since Carter and he was suspect as well. He was the one that started taxing unemployment benefits after all.
Reagan/Bush started the ball rolling with their trickle down voodoo economics, Clinton fucked us further with NAFTA and Wall Street deregulation, the Chimp took supply side economics to disastrous levels and now we have Obama "leaving the past in the past" and gutting the safety net.
And there's always an excuse, even when we have majorities in both houses there are never enough votes to do the right thing but always votes to spare on the wrong things. And that's because the leadership of this party is just as bought off and compromised as the entire Republican Party. The policies that would actually fix our problems aren't even considered, they're dismissed out of hand.
We need to face the facts. We have no representation anymore. The progressive caucus and senators like Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders have no power. And they're the only ones that get it right.
Doing the right thing on social issues is great, those are the bones they throw at us and say "See, he's a liberal" while our balls get cut off economically. The economy is the biggest social issue and making most of the Bush tax cuts permanent in exchange for a pittance in revenue is not progressive. Offering to cut Medicare and SS in exchange for a pittance in revenue is not progressive. I'm just sick of these third way "Democrats" not giving a fuck about us. I'm sick of the bullshit and excuses. I'm sick of starting negotiations at the point where any compromise ends up deep in the right wing's wheelhouse.
When do we ever stake out a position and make them come to us? Never. It's always sliding to the right, always appeasing them. I'm just fed up with the whole charade.