General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Let's be honest....nothing progressive can happen under HRC as president. [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Those years were a right-wing dead zone and they never had to be. The party never had to throw working people and the poor under the bus to win in '92...nor did we have to nominate a death penalty freak at a time when the murder right was declining anyway.
Eight years of nothing but betrayal. Eight years of a "Democratic" president caring more about increasing corporate profits by pushing NAFTA through than he ever cared about trying to get a worthwhile form of universal healthcare passed.
And yes, welfare as a status quo wasn't working...but the answer was jobs programs and rebuilding the inner cities, not just throwing the poor to the wolves and accepting every right-wing slur on the suppose lack of morality of poor women as if it were Gospel.
Other than a half-hearted endorsement of choice(coupled with an endorsement of the idea that women who had abortions should pretty much be shamed for making that decision)and the most tepid commitment to environmental protection possible, it was a Republican administration.
And we never had to settle for that. The country wasn' t demanding that Democrats repent for opposing Reaganism.