2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumAre we incubating a tea party of the left?
Commentator on CNN said that until now he has thought the debate between Sanders and Clinton was really good for the party, that it had focused on real and important issues, about which democrats are of several different not necessarily irreconcilable minds.
But he worried that with the recent negative turn, though, the primaries were in danger, as he put it, of "incubating a Tea Party of the left."
For the Tea Party of the Right, ideological purity matters above all else, compromise is a bad word and is something never to be tolerated or pursue. Those who tolerate or pursue compromise are to be shunned and defeated.
He worries that there are signs that the primaries are taking a turn in that direction. It wasn't clear exactly how he thinks the incubator can be turned off. But he definitely suggested that it should be.
Thoughts?
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Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)Pretty much most of what Sanders is running on is fairly mainstream in Europe. In the UK we've had "single payer" since 1948.
This is only a story for certain parts of the American chattering classes.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)roguevalley
(40,656 posts)vote for Obama and voted for McCain instead. It should. They invented taking their ball home when they lose.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)Those of us outside America have our own concerns.
Bjornsdotter
(6,123 posts)...on so many things.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)If it has not been funded
and no fancy road buses etc.,
this may mean that real people voting are the danger you fear Mr faceless nameless commentator
Where was this talk when the tea party was gaining momentum??? . Never heard much about how dangerous they were then Mr faceless nameless commentator
Why cover one but not the emerging other except to cast fear Mr faceless nameless commentator?
"But he worried that with the recent negative turn, though, the primaries were in danger,".....no just his 1% bosses may be financially and i cry no tears 
villager
(26,001 posts)CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)There is certainly a strain of purity that is coming through among the most fanatical of Bernie's supporters. Talk of compromising and getting done what you can is being met with derision for being 'small' thinking. That attitude is very much in line with the uncompromising tone that people like Ted Cruz take, where they truly believe that everything has to be their way, or it shouldn't be done at all.
What I'm not sure of is how many of those people there are. They are certainly the most vocal, especially online, but it's difficult to gauge their numbers.
kaleckim
(651 posts)be because of the impact of those policies? When the Sanders supporters rail against free trade, for example, are you arguing they do so entirely for ideological reasons or is it not possible that those trade policies have harmed them and made the country worse off on the whole? I think many Clinton supporters are relatively well off and are cut off from the negative consequences of the policies she has supported. I also, as someone with a background on the issue, would like to hear how we can avoid ecological collapse with moderate solutions. I'd love to hear people provide evidence that we have time to implement needed changes over the course of a half a century. It's weird, but Mother Nature doesn't care much for what we think is pragmatic.
I also would appreciate some evidence that, on an economic level, that the country has made progress. The argument from Clinton's campaign is that she is for incremental progress. Okay, where is the evidence? Has the trade model that she supported improved the US trade balance, created jobs and lessened inequality? Has inequality not exploded since Reagan (under Obama too)? How about private debt? Is infrastructure not crumbling from under-investment? The American Society of Engineers gives our infrastructure a D-. There is evidence that we have made some progress on things like marriage equality (no thanks to Clinton or Obama, late comers to the scene, only supported it when it was safe). There is no evidence of progress on an economic level at all. We have regressed. How people miss this is beyond me.
CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)Bernie says we need a single-payer system, and that the Affordable Care Act isn't good enough, that it was too watered down by special interest and big money. His supporters roar in approval every time he says this. Fine.
What was the alternative? There was not an appetite for anything further to the left than the ACA, given that it barely got through Congress as it is. If we adhered to Bernie's standards, nothing would have been passed, and those millions of people who now have coverage would be still without it. Purity would have resulted in nothing getting done, rather than something.
As for trade agreements, there's muddy waters. Yes, we have lost a number of manufacturing jobs because of them. How many is tough to say, because the numbers were already declining before NAFTA was signed. The other side of the coin is that free trade has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world. It's not as though there were no beneficiaries to them, and whether we like it or not, raising the living standards of the rest of the world can be in our benefit too. These issues are complicated.
First off, in regards to NAFTA, it isn't debatable. I want you to research the US's trade balance before and after NAFTA with both Canada and Mexico. Go ahead. I have a background in economics. The data is not only clear on job losses, it is also the case that NAFTA and similar deals have horrific impacts on environmental and financial regulation. You also think that NAFTA and Obama's Colombia free trade deal haven't helped to decimate unions? You know, for years now more union organizers have been killed in Colombia than the rest of the world combined. What do you think that, and militantly anti-union Mexico has done to unions in the US? I'd also like to hear how you think Chapter 11 of NAFTA, the so called "investor state disputes", is okay. Is that democratic? How about the impact of our trade balance with China before and after its entrance into the WTO.
I would also love to hear how millions of people have been lifted out of poverty by free trade. Cause developmental economists like Ha Joon Chang have shown that most every country that developed, developed behind protectionism. In fact, I challenge you to point to a single country that actually developed behind free trade. The US, for example, had the highest industrial tariffs in the world from about the War of 1812 until WWII. Even after that, the US utilized massive amounts of protectionism (even under Reagan) and still has the most protectionist agricultural system in the developed world. Has China developed behind free trade? Nope, I lived there, know the country well. Not only are they protectionist, but state owned enterprises are still the heart of the economy. Of 82 (I believe) of Chinese firms on the Fortune 500, I believe 78 are SOEs. Japan developed behind protectionism, South Korea, Europe. You know what "free trade" deals are? They are investor rights agreements and are highly protectionist in regards to things like intellectual property. They also create a system where countries can attract FDI by offering low wages and lower environmental costs, which why many on the left call that model a race to the bottom. The recent pink tide in Latin America was in response to the failure of the model you think is lifting people out of poverty, since that region implemented those policies more than any other region in the 80's and 90's. Then there is the impact that trade model has had on the environment, which is massive.
"There was not an appetite for anything further to the left than the ACA"
See, you just analyze this from the vantage point of the establishment, and what they want to do. Do you think the labor movement got the 40 hour work week, child labor laws, safe working conditions, the weekend, overtime pay, and the right to form unions by only doing what the establishment allowed them to? The public was solidly behind the public option and majorities in the US have long supported universal health care. What you said is true of the corrupt politicians running this corrupt and inequitable system. Sanders wants actual government policy to align with popular opinion. How could any working person, especially on the left, object to that, especially given that the left's policies are popular across the board? I think you should realize that your argument actually helps to radicalize people, since it is obvious that the status quo has nothing to offer them. Canada got Medicare by getting it passed in one province, which then spread nationally because of how well it worked. The politician most credited with creating Medicare, Tommy Douglass, is still the most popular Canadian politician.
The public was solidly behind the public option and majorities in the US have long supported universal health care. What you said is true of the corrupt politicians running this corrupt and inequitable system.
It was a system where Democrats (Bernie style progressives were even fewer) didn't have a vote to spare in order to pass the ACA. The only bill that could have gotten through was one that the more centrist Dems could go along with. Even in a left of center causes, you're going to have one or two people who don't agree with each position of liberal orthodoxy.
Canada got Medicare by getting it passed in one province, which then spread nationally because of how well it worked.
Vermont looked into doing that here, and it never got off the ground. If the groundswell was so huge for single-payer (which I do support in theory), one of the progressive states would have done it by now and proven it worked. So why hasn't Washington, or Oregon, or Vermont, ever enacted it?
kaleckim
(651 posts)You support single payer in theory? Great, you know, every other developed country has it. So, it isn't like it is a pie in the sky thing. It works better than our system in every other developed country. As I said, Medicare started in a single province in Canada and spread thereafter. Vermont is a tiny state. Difficult place to begin the process, because of the small tax base and economies of scale. It is a difficult process that will take awhile, but you don't get there by cementing inefficient private insurance companies as central pillars of the health care system.
"one of the progressive states would have done it by now and proven it worked"
So, what is your argument? That what works in every other country in the world is impossible here? Or, could it be that our system is so utterly corrupt with health care and drug company money that fundamental change is impossible? Again, what exactly is your argument? I take it that the laws of gravity work differently in the US as well? Is there something in the water here that makes it impossible? There are studies, can link them if you want, that show that popular opinion has next to no impact on actual government policy in the US. Think that's a problem? How do you solve that by backing someone as corrupt as Clinton, swimming in Wall Street and corporate cash? Do you want to address the fact that the public option was very popular and had broad support? Why is it not an issue that popular policy after popular policy is ignored because of outright corruption? You basically are arguing that your party, run by people like DWS and Clinton, are vehicles of progressive change, when there is no evidence what so ever that is the case. In fact, she has all but announced that the system won't change and to not even try. I'm sure King was told similar things. After all, who was this black man coming to the South and demanding structure changes?
CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)What I worry about is what happens if a single-payer system like Bernie is advocating gets passed? If the private insurance companies are all but driven out of business, what is the effect of having a multi-billion dollar industry no longer running, with tens if not hundreds of thousands of employees now out of (in many cases) very good paying jobs?
Having an idea is great. But there is often collateral damage that comes along with implementing it, and I'm going to wait to completely restructure nearly a fifth of our economy until there's a good explanation that there won't be calamitous side-effects.
kaleckim
(651 posts)You excuse a trade model which has resulted in millions of jobs lost, and tens of thousands of factories closing (endless studies showing this, the debate at this point is how big the losses have been, not whether or not they've occurred), but are concerned about changes to the health care system that would result in a fraction as many jobs being lost? How do you reconcile those two positions? Beyond that, we still have tens of millions of people not covered, so if we did move towards single payer and universal care, we'd have to hire more doctors, nurses and support staff. That would offset, if not more than offset, any jobs being lost at insurance companies, which are inefficient institutions that exist and make profits by denying people care. It obviously doesn't bother you, or move you, to notice how many people still die from a lack of care, how many still go into bankruptcy because of the system and given how inefficient our system is (even with the ACA, healthy care costs are increasing at a quicker rate than wages are for most people). Honestly, Clinton supporters are alike in that they totally lack vision. They look at the current inequitable and corrupt system and think it is just fine, which is why most could care less about her obvious corruption. Shouldn't be a surprise that lots of people now seek radical change. I think you all forgot that to maintain a system you have to have the system benefit enough people that feel compelled to defend the system and that is increasingly not the case anymore.
kaleckim
(651 posts)However, just as children need to be nurtured before they can compete in high-productivity jobs, industries in developing countries should be sheltered from superior foreign producers before they "grow up". They need to be given protection, subsidies, and other help while they master advanced technologies and build effective organisations.
This argument is known as the infant industry argument. What is little known is that it was first theorised by none other than the first finance minister (treasury secretary) of the United States - Alexander Hamilton, whose portrait adorns the $10 bill.
Initially few Americans were convinced by Hamilton's argument. After all, Adam Smith, the father of economics, had already advised Americans against artificially developing manufacturing industries. However, over time people saw sense in Hamilton's argument, and the US shifted to protectionism after the Anglo-American War of 1812. By the 1830s, its industrial tariff rate, at 40-50 per cent, was the highest in the world, and remained so until the Second World War.
The US may have invented the theory of infant industry protection, but the practice had existed long before. The first big success story was, surprisingly, Britain - the supposed birthplace of free trade. In fact, Hamilton's programme was in many ways a copy of Robert Walpole's enormously successful 1721 industrial development programme, based on high (among world's highest) tariffs and subsidies, which had propelled Britain into its economic supremacy.
Britain and the US may have been the most ardent - and most successful - users of tariffs, but most of today's rich countries deployed tariff protection for extended periods in order to promote their infant industries. Many of them also actively used government subsidies and public enterprises to promote new industries. Japan and many European countries have given numerous subsidies to strategic industries. The US has publicly financed the highest share of research and development in the world. Singapore, despite its free-market image, has one of the largest public enterprise sectors in the world, producing around 30 per cent of the national income. Public enterprises were also crucial in France, Finland, Austria, Norway, and Taiwan.
When they needed to protect their nascent producers, most of today's rich countries restricted foreign investment. In the 19th century, the US strictly regulated foreign investment in banking, shipping, mining, and logging. Japan and Korea severely restricted foreign investment in manufacturing. Between the 1930s and the 1980s, Finland officially classified all firms with more than 20 per cent foreign ownership as "dangerous enterprises".
...Growth has failed particularly badly in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, where neo-liberal reforms have been implemented most thoroughly. In the "bad old days", per capita income in Latin America grew at an impressive 3.1 per cent per year. In the "brave new world", it has been growing at a paltry 0.5 per cent. In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita income grew at 1.6 per cent a year during 1960-80, but since then the region has seen a fall in living standards (by 0.3 per cent a year).
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)What we are seeing is a clash between incrementalism and "go for broke" approaches ... Those with the most to loss, tend to adopt the former ... and, in my estimation, rightfully so.
kaleckim
(651 posts)of incremental progress economically, in regards to infrastructure and education since about Reagan? Do we have less or more inequality(even under Obama) ? Have we seen de-industrialization, an increase in private debt, is infrastructure not crumbling? Where is the evidence that things have gotten incrementally better? It isn't so just because you claim it is. Clinton has not been for incremental progress, on a wide range of issues the policies she and Democrats like her (as well as the Republicans) have supported have unquestionably made everything worse off. What we have here is a group of people supporting a corrupt candidate, a person responsible along with her husband for pulling the Democrats right in the 80's and 90's, backing failed policies, while the other group realizes the type of structural changes that are needed and are fighting for those changes as a result.
I'd love to hear the argument that we can make incremental changes in regards to the environment as well. Anyone that knows the science knows what is coming for us, and we don't have tons of time. If you think about the structural changes needed to avoid that, she is one of the worst people to hand the store to. Yes, she acknowledges the science, great. Since she has argued against any radical changes, she will not offer policies that will help us avoid ecological collapse. "Moderates" seem to think that we have more time than we do to radically change.
Dems to Win
(2,161 posts)I'm voting for Bernie in hope that my brother, a WalMart employee, can finally get health care. WalMart now gives him a 'health insurance' policy with a $5500 deductible -- for a $10/hr employee! He still can't afford to go to the doctor when he gets sick.
The ACA was passed solely by Democrats, not a single Repub vote. So why did the Dems pass a Republican plan? Nancy Pelosi bragged that the ACA included 200 Republican amendments.
I'm furious that Democrats passed a 'health care reform' that leaves out the working poor. If the ACA is the best we can expect from incremental Dems, then the hell with them. We need drastic change.
CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)you would still need to have a majority of the House, and 60 votes in the Senate. He can talk all he wants about 'revolution', but when 90% of Americans supporting background checks on guns wasn't enough to even get to a real vote on the issue, there is no chance of having the kind of support in Congress he would need to do these things.
The reason the ACA passed is that it was the most progressive bill that the entirety of the Dem caucus could agree on. Since we proudly and rightly have a big tent, that means not everyone is going to be as far left as Bernie is. You can call it a Republican plan, but it was the only one that could pass.
Dems to Win
(2,161 posts)With Hillary receiving 300K from a WalMart heir and having WalMart lobbyists raising money for her, I expect absolutely zero progress from a Hillary administration.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Bottom up in this case means state legislatures, governors, then house of representatives and senate and then President.
Electing Bernie would do nothing. There is no support for him in the House and Senate.
the corrupt politicians that control the corrupt political system of ours don't like someone that wants structural change? Odd. Didn't see that coming. Say, do you think that the labor movement in the 19th century gave a damn what the establishment of that time was willing to give them? You do realize that we didn't get the 40 hour work week, child labor laws, overtime pay, the weekend, and the right to form unions, because the labor leaders looked at what the establishment at the time wanted and only worked within those confines? They had a long term vision and put enough pressure on the system and capitalists that they responded, realizing that if they didn't more radical changes would eventually be called for. There is no social movement in history that made an impact using your logic. Yes, corrupt politicians won't immediately put in place those changes. That is why you get organized and take them on. You don't elect some superhero that goes and fights for you within a corrupt system like ours. The Civil Rights movement fought an entrenched system in the South. Were they wrong to do civil disobedience and to largely not work within the confines of the political system? They system responded to their activism. Thank god people like yourself back then were ignored.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)There's little arguing that the Tea Party isn't a far-right fringe movement, even in heavily right-skewed American politics. It's a sad indication of how far right the Democratic Party's "leadership" has drifted when basic, modest liberalism is in danger of being compared to that sort of extremism on the other side.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)
ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)The 'fringe-tea-party-left" is advocating for policy that was considering mainstream only 40 years ago. This bullshit pundit gaslighting is nauseating.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Why not one that represents the Left?
kaleckim
(651 posts)are that people on the left, independents and the general, are responding to impact of the policies. So, for example, when the left criticizes NAFTA (by the way, were proponents of NAFTA like the Clintons correct about the impact it would have, or were the left wing critics proven correct?), and similar deals, they do so in part for ideological reasons, but more than anything because of the actual impact it has had on working people, our democracy and the environment. Same with austerity, same with the health are system, corruption, etc. When people make those simplistic arguments, they are in effect on some level claiming that the Tea Party's critiques and policies are equally valid or invalid of the left's. That may be the case (not really), but does it make any logical sense to assume something like that? What that commentator (likely someone relatively well off, someone that has benefited from the system and doesn't want to see it change as a result) is saying is that the left's critiques are entirely ideological in nature. That is not the case. As I said, it is more than anything the impact of those policies, and it shouldn't be surprising that well off people on TV, on networks owned by even more well off people, don't want to address the actual impact of policies and want to pretend it is all ideological. I seek radical changes to avoid ecological collapse not because I read Rachel Carson or Herman Daly, but because the system as it is constructed will lead us to that collapse. I know the damn issues, and you might notice that CNN doesn't talk much about the ecological crisis, now do they?
Besides, does that commentator want to analyze the fact that the left's policies are extremely popular, while the Tea Party's are deeply unpopular? Why would that be the case? There are lots of people that take stances on issues that are normally associated with the left, but they clearly don't do so for ideological reasons. Analyzing why they do is dangerous for the power structure for obvious reasons.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)for the venile corrupt corporate party establishment.
I'm sure you all will weeps and have your sadz as the party moves to the left. But you all will have no choice in the end but to fall in line.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Broward
(1,976 posts)for most Americans.
I'm sure that's fine though with the Third Way right-wingers that have hijacked the Party.
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)It looks VERY much like the tea party.
kaleckim
(651 posts)the nerve of people wanting to change policies that have harmed them and the country. They should continue to suffer, "be reasonable", and get lectured to by well off people that have benefited from the system. Wages haven't grown for most in decades, de-industrialization has deepened, inequality and private debt have exploded, infrastructure is crumbling and we are on the way to ecological collapse. At what point in time does supporting the continuation of that stop being reasonable? When does it stop being reasonable to ask people to indefinitely suffer? Some people see injustice and become radicalized. Others just yawn and roll their eyes at the peasants.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)and away from cynical, Third Way, pro corporate defeatism.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)the scorched earth tactics are catching on throughout all of Camp Weathervane (of which CNN is a part).
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Hillary is just that bad. It's that simple.
Bjorn Against
(12,041 posts)It is pretty clear that the Third Way is the closest thing the Democrats have to a Tea Party.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)When the Party was Sold to the Corporate Elite in the 80's. It's called by many names: DLC, Blue Dog, Third Way
By supporting Bernie we are attempting to take the Party away from the Corporate Elite and their stooges and return the Party to We The People.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)
Else You Are Mad
(3,040 posts)That the MSM is espousing the fear the establishment has of a large portion of the left that do not simply fall in line behind what they have been telling the Democrats to do. They are afraid that the establishment is losing its control over the Left that they have had for the last 20 years or so.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)...much as sunshine follows rain.
But equating Sanders support with the Tea Party is a slur.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)revbones
(3,660 posts)who believe that a "D" makes every right-wing or pro-corporate policy is ok because someone with a "D" behind their name is doing it.
This is just taking the party back from them.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)About half claim that they are like the Tea Party in that they are sick of the establishment and are unwilling to compromise.
The other half is claiming that they are the "real Democratic party" and those who support Hillary are the left's Tea Party.
Rebkeh
(2,450 posts)It's not.
What is dissonant is that the establishment supporters think they status quo is stable.
It. Is. Not.
Unless you are a billionaire, this system is not working for you and it isn't going to unless we correct course.
But, whatever works for you.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Got. It.
Rebkeh
(2,450 posts)Bernie will not save us. WE will save us.. if we get out of our own way.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)But Bernie is a very effective catalyst.
And, about the need to fear a "Tea Party Left," Might want to consider this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1682006
Rebkeh
(2,450 posts)The Tea Party is not anti-establishment in the same sense. They want to take us back to the old days because the power is consolidating further and further away from them. They want to become the elite of old. They want to regress.
They want to restore the previous imbalance of power that benefited them, mostly due to race. They want the nation broken up into sections (class, race, etc).
We want to go forward, not back. We want to progress. We want a level playing field, justice and equality, not just balance of power. We want the country to be united as a people that has come together.
What a sloppy false equivalence there, sometimes I think liberals forget that progressives are critical thinkers.
Meanwhile the establishment is still trying to have it both ways while the majority of the population is fed up with the false sense of unity based on a fictional center.
Edited to add:
We want democracy. They don't.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)...narrow-minded candidates to all levels of government. They got the "mainstream" Republican wingnuts to cater to them out of fear of being voted out. And they successfully got some incredibly regressive, damaging, legislation through. (And are still at it.)
I don't know if we're incubating Tea Party Left, but if we are, I hope they are every bit as effective in electing levelheaded, fair-minded candidates to all levels of government. I hope they get mainstream Democrats to cater to them out of fear of being voted out. And I hope they are even more successful at getting some incredibly progressive, beneficial legislation through.
Seems to me that the only people who should be afraid of a rising Tea Party Left are the Dems who are currently defending an extremely immoral status quo.
kennetha
(3,666 posts)Makes me think that the guy I heard on CNN talking about this is channelling many members of the Dem Establishment.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)I don't think there is any real "coordination." I put it down to beltway group think. (Which could be considered a type of "channeling."
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)You have a tea party problem in Canada?
Do tell...
beedle
(1,235 posts)It's a fucking amazing word, the establishment Democrats should try to learn what that word means and make use of some time.
"Compromise" is not "what does the other person want so we can start negotiations there, letting the other side get even more than they though was possible."
forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)We need a Tea Party of the Left, but we don't actually have one yet. The Tea Party was astroturfed for sure, but these people have been around for decades mobilizing on the conservative fringes waiting for the right moment to be activated. They're the ones who lost in 1964, kept pushing and pushing until we got Reagan, pushing and pushing again until we got the 1994 wipeout. The key thing is that they even though they complain about Republicans, they still turn out enough to vote for them because liberalism and social progress is just that scary to them, and then go back to trying to primary half the lot.
Now interestingly, the Left has done this too - but ONLY the "social issues" part. Black people never stop voting for Democrats. LBGT people never stop voting for Democrats. Hispanics are rapidly moving into that group. They stay in the party, complain that the party isn't doing enough, push and eventually mainstream their views. Thus a Democratic Party that is trying to be "tough on crime" in 1994 and signing DOMA and DADT in 1994 has repealed DOMA, is pushing for comprehensive racial justice (granted with a strong BLM push), and is even appointing trans people to political positions 20 years later. But the economic/socialist Left retreated into culdesacs, not staying within party politics, completely eschewing incrementalism when they couldn't get their Petrograd 1917 fantasies going (even MARX himself was an incrementalist in many ways) and just staying on the sidelines sniping at the corrupt system.
There's a market for movement leftism, but we don't have a true "movement leftism", just a bunch of angry mostly white guys LARPing, and it's been this way for half a century.
randr
(12,412 posts)will emerge to counter the Teabagger gang is in total denial. I don't know who to thank for the fact that today's new voters are leftward leaning, progressive, and unafraid of change. It was certainly not the DNC or previous Democrat legislators.
dr60omg
(283 posts)I mention climate change because I am a parent and I do not want to see my children and grandchildren have to face an increasingly inhospitable climate. We are at a critical juncture in human history and we do not have the time to wait.
I am tired of politics that plays to the left and then moves further and further to the right.
I am tired of doctors and nurses speaking out FOR single payer and what we get is crickets or it can not be done because of the insurance industry who not only regulates your insurance but also malpractice premiums which brings me to manipulations in stock and stock prices from the banks and the way there are these bubbles created which DO affect how people live particularly when it has to do with pensions
I am embarrassed that we have eroded the social safety net rather than expanded it
I am disgusted by NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP etc which have done nothing to help American workers but have also helped reinforce slave labor scenarios overseas some of which are nightmarish
I am appalled at the increasing disparities between rich and poor (and yes including environmental racism and water not just in Flint but in other areas like the Central Valley of California and on and on and on) '
I am tired of both neoliberal and neoconservative policies. Neoliberal as in everything can be bought and sold for capitalist gain. When schools and education go to Wall Street to be bought and sold as commodities. When our health care is too. That is a frightening scenario. Privatization breeds inequity. Neoconservative because of these ridiculous imperialist colonialist wars which are sickening
gollygee
(22,336 posts)
deathrind
(1,786 posts)Call wanting the Democratic Party to be a Democratic Party not a republican lite party a left wing version of the rights tea party...so be it.
Dems to Win
(2,161 posts)I wish we had as many Bernies in Congress as we have teapartiers.
HughLefty1
(231 posts)This is not a 'tea party of the left movement' and to label it as such is a disservice.
applegrove
(118,719 posts)think they can beat Trump, they don't need Hillary anymore to be the Trump killer in the GE. So it is back to paid GOP trolls on the DU dehumanizing Hillary all the time.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)They do not base their opinions on facts, they base them on what they want to be true.
That is the real problem with the Tea baggers. They reject reality.
Those to the right (relatively speaking) within our party are doing the same thing.
Lets use facts and logic to develop policies. If we do, the party and the nation moves left.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)In the same day. Red baiting at it's finest
