General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The imminent backlash of the Democratic Left. [View all]reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)... liberals and progressive. Not, of course, as far left as someone is who would claim there isn't any difference between their positions and those of a "moderate republican". Those who are far from the center often don't distinguish between positions that range around the center, but those distinctions do exist and are important for advancing and implementing liberal / progressive policy.
So, you have your opinion and strategy, I have my opinion and strategy.
My point about 2008 is that it didn't represent a repudiation of what you characterize as "Third Way Politics". It was fatigue with the various wars, especially Iraq, and a reaction against the sudden financial crisis right before the election. In point of fact, the winning candidate (two times now!) was the candidate supported by Emmanuel and Axelrod. Axelrod is credited with crafting Obama's winning strategy.
I looked up Emmanuel's "retarded" comment. This was an exceptionally stupid remark on his part, and apparently he lets loose with this kind of verbiage quite frequently. The remark seems to have been directed against a particular strategy that was proposed by a liberal activist group. They wanted to run attack ads against more conservative democrats who were not supporting a public option. The point was that these democrats would be needed to pass the final bill, whatever it might be, and running attack ads would have killed the ACA. He was not disparaging liberals, or liberal activists in general - he was reacting against a particular tactic that he thought would be a fail. My guess is that he was probably right.