• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Democrats Split Again Over Party's Agenda

Steeplerot

Steeplerot

Lifer
Linkage
WASHINGTON ? The truce appears to be expiring among Democrats in Washington.

In the immediate aftermath of Sen. John F. Kerry's loss to President Bush in November, Democrats notably avoided the postelection squabbling that's consumed the party after almost all recent presidential races ? even those it won.

But as the new year begins, a series of high-profile articles in leading liberal journals is suddenly reopening old divisions.



What Beinart is saying is we need to purge from the party the people who got the war in Iraq right. That is not going to happen, but the to make it happen, which the has now embraced, will be a brutal fight.

Robert Borosage, of the Campaign for America's Future
On one front, a liberal operative at a top think tank has accused the Democratic Leadership Council, the principal organization of party centrists, of pushing the party toward a pro-corporate agenda "that sells out America's working class ? the demographic that used to be the party's base."

In equally combative terms, a leading young centrist commentator published a manifesto in the New Republic magazine accusing the Democratic left of slighting the struggle against Islamic terrorism and undermining the party's image on security ? an argument instantly embraced and promoted by the Democratic Leadership Council.






A few comments on DU I found that I agree strongly with, and I would like to hear some feedback about it from the liberals on this board. It seems pretty centrist sometimes. What do you all think?

The Democratic Party is dead...
I want nothing to do with a party that abandons its ideals in order to curry favor with religious fundies, corporate fascists, and closet homophobes/racists/bigots.
If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. And, so dies the right-of-middle Democratic Party led by Repuke appeasers and political opportunists.



Not fighting for our ideals only reinforces that we are WIMPS...
Of course, this isn't the case.

But, many of us have been led astray by those who have personal agendas and couldn't give two shits for the populist ideals that made the Democrats STRONG prior to and just after WWII.

It's time to call Repuke behavior on the carpet. When I hear Repukes talking their bullshit at parties and in public, I make sure to point out that their ideas are borne of racism, hatred, and bigotry.

They call us, "tree huggers." We call them, "environmental rapists."

They call us, "homo-lovers." We call them, "backward-looking idiots."

They call us, "bleeding heart." We call them, "Anti-Jesus."

They call us, "pro-abortion." We call them, "pro-fascist personal choice haters."

They call us, "Islam lovers." We call them, "imperialistic crusaders."

They call us, "communists/socialists." We call them, "devoid of social conscience."

They call us, "wimps." We call them, "stupid, short-sighted bullies."

They call us, "liberal." And, we say, "HELL, YES. AND, PROUD OF IT."

This is WAR, people. GET UP AND FIGHT FOR THE DIRECTION OF YOUR COUNTRY!!
 
this is normal stuff for a political party to go through after an election loss.

most of those comments from the DU are pretty dumb, though.
 
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Linkage
WASHINGTON ? The truce appears to be expiring among Democrats in Washington.

In the immediate aftermath of Sen. John F. Kerry's loss to President Bush in November, Democrats notably avoided the postelection squabbling that's consumed the party after almost all recent presidential races ? even those it won.

But as the new year begins, a series of high-profile articles in leading liberal journals is suddenly reopening old divisions.



What Beinart is saying is we need to purge from the party the people who got the war in Iraq right. That is not going to happen, but the to make it happen, which the has now embraced, will be a brutal fight.

Robert Borosage, of the Campaign for America's Future
On one front, a liberal operative at a top think tank has accused the Democratic Leadership Council, the principal organization of party centrists, of pushing the party toward a pro-corporate agenda "that sells out America's working class ? the demographic that used to be the party's base."

In equally combative terms, a leading young centrist commentator published a manifesto in the New Republic magazine accusing the Democratic left of slighting the struggle against Islamic terrorism and undermining the party's image on security ? an argument instantly embraced and promoted by the Democratic Leadership Council.






A few comments on DU I found that I agree strongly with, and I would like to hear some feedback about it from the liberals on this board. It seems pretty centrist sometimes. What do you all think?

The Democratic Party is dead...
I want nothing to do with a party that abandons its ideals in order to curry favor with religious fundies, corporate fascists, and closet homophobes/racists/bigots.
If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. And, so dies the right-of-middle Democratic Party led by Repuke appeasers and political opportunists.



Not fighting for our ideals only reinforces that we are WIMPS...
Of course, this isn't the case.

But, many of us have been led astray by those who have personal agendas and couldn't give two shits for the populist ideals that made the Democrats STRONG prior to and just after WWII.

It's time to call Repuke behavior on the carpet. When I hear Repukes talking their bullshit at parties and in public, I make sure to point out that their ideas are borne of racism, hatred, and bigotry.

They call us, "tree huggers." We call them, "environmental rapists."

They call us, "homo-lovers." We call them, "backward-looking idiots."

They call us, "bleeding heart." We call them, "Anti-Jesus."

They call us, "pro-abortion." We call them, "pro-fascist personal choice haters."

They call us, "Islam lovers." We call them, "imperialistic crusaders."

They call us, "communists/socialists." We call them, "devoid of social conscience."

They call us, "wimps." We call them, "stupid, short-sighted bullies."

They call us, "liberal." And, we say, "HELL, YES. AND, PROUD OF IT."

This is WAR, people. GET UP AND FIGHT FOR THE DIRECTION OF YOUR COUNTRY!!
Click to expand...

I've always thought that going more to the right in the party would be a horrible idea. Republican-lite is just not appealing.

 
They already have a party to vote for why woul the democrats sell out?
Plenty of people not voting lets split it up if the democrats can't keep focused on the base values of the party then let them chase the coattails of rpublican corprate money
then lets leave them in the dust IMO. The DLC is NOT representing party values and haven't been for ages. -Let it die.
 
what i want to know is... where is the party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal? libertarian seems to be closest, but it seems like a lot of them are kind of out there.
 
here here, sure would be nice if the wedge issues fall to the wayside for awhile. I sure woud like to see the real fiscally conservative republicans give the Libertarian Party a fair shake with out all the reactionary buzzwords and propaganda.
Anti-war and enviromentalist types go green. Cast off the democrat sellouts.
Rename the current republican party neoconservatives since they have taken full control. If people want a imperialist President there you go.
And make a new republican/libertarian party for the fiscally conservative republicans.
-pull their name out from the mud and back them out of the irresponsible corner the imperialist neocons have trapped them into.
If the system was set up something like this I would vote all across party lines depending on the office and current affairs.
Politics aren't even black and white nowdays IMO
Now it's just black and a little less black.
 
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
here here, sure would be nice if the wedge issues fall to the wayside for awhile. I sure woud like to see the real fiscally conservative republicans give the Libertarian Party a fair shake with out all the reactionary buzzwords and propaganda.
Anti-war and enviromentalist types go green. Cast off the democrat sellouts.
Rename the current republican party neoconservatives since they have taken full control. If people want a imperialist President there you go.
And make a new republican/libertarian party for the fiscally conservative republicans to try to straighten up this mess the Neocons have got their former party into.
Click to expand...

exactly 🙂
 
Steeplerot, I admire your youthful idealism and committment to principle. But someday I think you will see that sometimes you have to be pragmatic. Politics is cold, hard, pure reality and there's compromise. What good is it to have the best idea in the world but nobody listens? What good is it to be right (as in correct), if you're on the fringe and nobody accepts it? My guess is in 10 years you will have moderated some, and more apt to acknowledge political realities and "play the game".
 
Originally posted by: gopunk
what i want to know is... where is the party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal? libertarian seems to be closest, but it seems like a lot of them are kind of out there.
Click to expand...

That was Bill Clinton.
 
Originally posted by: cwjerome
Steeplerot, I admire your youthful idealism and committment to principle. But someday I think you will see that sometimes you have to be pragmatic. Politics is cold, hard, pure reality and there's compromise. What good is it to have the best idea in the world but nobody listens? What good is it to be right (as in correct), if you're on the fringe and nobody accepts it? My guess is in 10 years you will have moderated some, and more apt to acknowledge political realities and "play the game".
Click to expand...

Selling out is the problem not the answer. Obviously the system is flawed so it is the system itself that needs to change not the people aware. Hiding your head in the sand will only reinforce that their status-quo is correct. Apathy is the big killer of Politics nowdays, and that is not my style, CJ
 
Originally posted by: gopunk
what i want to know is... where is the party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal? libertarian seems to be closest, but it seems like a lot of them are kind of out there.
Click to expand...

Damn right. I can't get behind the Republicans because they are way too socially liberal (and not really fiscally conservative anyways). But I have trouble with the Democrats because, all evidence too the contrary, they believe that being fiscally liberal is sound fiscal policy.

Which is of course the point, everyone wants something different from a party, and the Democrats are trying to figure out what role they need to play in the coming years. Hint, it's not another Republican party in all but name, the "liberal elite" whiny conservatives to the contrary. I'd be surprised if we didn't see this.
 
Originally posted by: cwjerome
Steeplerot, I admire your youthful idealism and committment to principle. But someday I think you will see that sometimes you have to be pragmatic. Politics is cold, hard, pure reality and there's compromise. What good is it to have the best idea in the world but nobody listens? What good is it to be right (as in correct), if you're on the fringe and nobody accepts it? My guess is in 10 years you will have moderated some, and more apt to acknowledge political realities and "play the game".
Click to expand...

This is what I was talking about. The Democrats problem isn't that they aren't enough like the Republicans, the problem is that they focus on the wrong issues, the issues that don't matter as much to people.

There seems to be this belief that everyone is too conservative for the Democrats and they need to moderate in order to draw more people. I have seen no evidence of that, what I have seen is that moderates are already drawn to the Democrats over the Republicans and that the holdouts are probably on the other side because Democrats don't spend enough time addressing the issues that matter to them.

Case in point. One of the two strong points for Bush in the 2004 election was terrorism (the other being "moral values" of course). People who's most pressing issue was terrorism voted overwhelmingly for Bush. Not because the Democratic position was too liberal on the issue, but because their position was virtually unknown. When it came up, they said pretty much what the Republicans were saying, but they didn't have the same track record. So of course the terrorism voters picked Bush, he had the same ideas, he talked about them more, and he had a track record of doing something.

You can't win by being like the other guy, you win by offering a better alternative to issues that matter to most people. THAT is what the Democrats need to be, and probably will be, doing.
 
Wedge issues is the problem here.
It's easy enough to figure it's all pomp and entertainment until people start to realize these guys have a agenda.
Distracting masses with wedge issues while the serious problems boil over.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top