Has the Democrat Party gone more left wing/liberal the last 20 yrs?

Has the Democrat Party gone more left wing/liberal the last 20 yrs?


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I'm by no means otherworldly intelligent, but I at least back up my opinions with relevant information that supports my beliefs.

You should supplement some of that "relevant information" with actual history, you communist loser.

<Lmaoo>
 
There isn't really any room for opinion here.

I figure anyone voting "no" is a self-proclaimed anarchist or some such and has invented their own custom version of the right/left paradigm.

The Democrats have literally hit a wall where they can't figure out on even a theoretical level how to move any further left. The world's communist nations shun the extremism/degeneracy of the EU & US left wings.

Look at the metamorphosis of the Clintons. '90s Clintons would be "far-right confederate homo bashers" in today's world.
 
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Unless we're talking Carter (who exited office in 1981, nearly 40 years ago), all the Democratic presidents we've had have either been neoliberals like Clinton or centrists like Obama both which moved the party to the right of where Carter left it.

Which is why I wanted a clearer range we both were talking about. From the past twenty years, I believe democrats have shifts left. Clinton was more of a centrist than Obama. If you go, farther back, that escapes what I was saying. America leaned left overall far more 40+ years ago. Guys like Eisenhower wouldn't have fit into a modern day GOP.
 
Unless we're talking Carter (who exited office in 1981, nearly 40 years ago), all the Democratic presidents we've had have either been neoliberals like Clinton or centrists like Obama both which moved the party to the right of where Carter left it.

Carter was also considered a corporate sellout when he was president (and was even primaried from the left with Kennedy calling for a more liberal platform in the convention).

I think the system is designed to frustrate extremists, and they will never have a positive assessment of any active politician, though they'll frequently look back on ones they don't remember very positively.
 
The Democrats have literally hit a wall where they can't figure out on even a theoretical level how to move any further left.

Er, single payer, free college, drug decriminalization, UBI, tighter bank regs, carbon taxes, etc. That was a pretty crazy/ignorant comment.
 
Nope, the democrats have clearly shifted to the right economically over the last 20+ years, there now neoliberial technocrats with a thin mask of indenity politics to them.

Really when it comes to the key economics issues the deck has been loaded with no choice for a very long time.
 
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Nope, the democrats have clearly shifted to the right economically over the last 20+ years, there now neoliberial technocrats with a thin mask of indemnity politics to them.

What positions did they move right on?
 
Tax rates, Clinton's welfare reform, minimum wage/union support.

What do you mean? What was the preferred tax rate of the part 20 years ago, and what is it now? Obama led changes to the tax code that have it more progressive than it was after Clinton's changes (which were more than 20 years ago). Seems to me that the party has moved left on welfare reform (that is, it enacted it more than 20 years ago, was OK with it for a while, and mostly opposes it now). The party had a ridiculously high MW on its platform in 2016. Not seeing how they've moved right there. Union support seems stronger than ever.
 
What do you mean? What was the preferred tax rate of the part 20 years ago, and what is it now? Obama led changes to the tax code that have it more progressive than it was after Clinton's changes (which were more than 20 years ago). Seems to me that the party has moved left on welfare reform (that is, it enacted it more than 20 years ago, was OK with it for a while, and mostly opposes it now). The party had a ridiculously high MW on its platform in 2016. Not seeing how they've moved right there. Union support seems stronger than ever.
Up until this election cycle, I would say that MW wasn't even pushed at all. I know Bill got it raised, but like you said, that was along time ago.

Also, I'm focusing more on the plus there. The Democratic party is well right of where it was under FDR.
 
Up until this election cycle, I would say that MW wasn't even pushed at all. I know Bill got it raised, but like you said, that was along time ago.

Also, I'm focusing more on the plus there. The Democratic party is well right of where it was under FDR.

Fair enough on the very long-term comparison, though I think that is pretty complicated. We still had a racial caste system that most people were OK with, for example. Inequality of rights is pretty extreme right. But like I said earlier, they moved right first and then have been moving left over the past 20 years.
 
Er, single payer, free college, drug decriminalization, UBI, tighter bank regs, carbon taxes, etc. That was a pretty crazy/ignorant comment.

I think that all fits my post. They've moved so far to the left that the last tier is a list of totally theoretical/nonviable fantasy items. Satisfying their voters by pretending to pursue these ridiculous policies is their biggest obstacle, moreso than any truly extant "right-wing".

Mild recreational drugs are already being rapidly decriminalized. Meth/heroin/etc decriminalization is unlikely to be socially viable, although California Democrats are implementing "safe injection sites" to grant immunity to hardcore junkies. What's left? Where do you go from there?

2 year college tuition is effectively waived if your family makes under 6 figures (single filer: $90,000/joint filer: $180,000) or you're over 23. 4 year tuition is mostly paid by grants if you have a passing grade point average. I finished my bachelors with extra state grant money left over and only paid for graduate school. What "free college" means in 2017 is 4-6 years of free meals & utilities & housing, a fantasy Americans seem to think is common "overseas". Is that even theoretically viable, especially traditional resident campuses themselves become obsolete?

UBI? Does that not apply perfectly to what I said? How much further left can you possibly move when the last remaining frontier is UBI?

The strange thing about extreme leftists is they never want to call themselves that. They want the image of cool-headed centrists but they're hard-pressed to imagine even a fantasy world of their own design that's left of their actual parties.

They've hit a wall. This is as left as it goes pre-singularity.
 
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Fair enough on the very long-term comparison, though I think that is pretty complicated. We still had a racial caste system that most people were OK with, for example. Inequality of rights is pretty extreme right. But like I said earlier, they moved right first and then have been moving left over the past 20 years.
Obama was certainly to the left of Clinton. That's for sure.

I think that I'm still retroactively buttmad that Henry Wallace got screwed by the party brokers, and Truman ended up getting the Vice Presidency, and then the Presidency after FDR died. Wallace's vision for the country, and the world, would have been really nice to see realized.
 
I think that all fits my post. They've moved so far to the left that the last tier is a list of totally theoretical/nonviable fantasy items.

None of those are non-viable (though I have concerns about the politics of single payer) or fantasy items.

The strange thing about extreme leftists is they never want to call themselves that. They want the image of cool-headed centrists but they're hard-pressed to imagine even a fantasy world of their own design that's left of their actual parties.

Actual extreme leftists--anarchists--are happy to call themselves that. Slightly less extreme leftists--socialists who still think we should have a state--are usually happy to call themselves extreme leftists. People who support a mostly market-based economy with some worker, consumer, and environmental protections still call themselves extreme leftists, though most probably don't.
 
Tax rates, Clinton's welfare reform, minimum wage/union support.

I'd say all of those would be points they did move to the left more

Also, regulating business.

Clinton repealed glass-steagall and pass the telecommunications act and ended farm subsidies


Now let's add in social issues. Clinton didn't support gay marriage. Obama and the party did. Obama moved on to trans rights issues which would've been unheard of in the 90s.

I think at best, people could try to argue Obama and Clinton were in the same place but Clinton definitely wasn't left of Obama
 
I'd say all of those would be points they did move to the left more



Clinton repealed glass-steagall and pass the telecommunications act and ended farm subsidies


Now let's add in social issues. Clinton didn't support gay marriage. Obama and the party did. Obama moved on to trans rights issues which would've been unheard of in the 90s.

I think at best, people could try to argue Obama and Clinton were in the same place but Clinton definitely wasn't left of Obama
I already agreed that Obama was more to the left than Clinton. I was focusing on a larger perspective. We're still not even back to FDR levels of progressive reforms. Bernie went there, and was branded an outright socialist.

Our discourse as a nation has moved to the right drastically since 1980 or so, and generally to the right since FDR.
 
I already agreed that Obama was more to the left than Clinton. I was focusing on a larger perspective. We're still not even back to FDR levels of progressive reforms. Bernie went there, and was branded an outright socialist.

Our discourse as a nation has moved to the right drastically since 1980 or so, and generally to the right since FDR.

Yea, no one here is saying it from that point in time to now. It's 20 years. I think a society like FDRs wouldn't work the same way if implemented today. The world is far more complicated now and he had to deal with issues we no longer have as much issues with. We are talking about an era that still had the gold standard.
 
Yea, no one here is saying it from that point in time to now. It's 20 years. I think a society like FDRs wouldn't work the same way if implemented today. The world is far more complicated now and he had to deal with issues we no longer have as much issues with. We are talking about an era that still had the gold standard.

If anything the reverse, the gold standard tied FDR's hands public spending wise much moreso than is the case today yet the response to the 2008 recession was mostly focused on propping up the institutions that caused it whilst doing almost nothing to prevent similar issues in the future.

Increasingly I would say that from the 80's onwards theres been a deliberate attempt to push the most war boom in the US as down to free market capitalism yet in reality you were dealing with an era that was economically much more left wing where wealth inequality fell massively. Free market capitalism becoming dominant against under Reagan as in the early 20th century led to mushrooming wealth inequality and another massive depression.
 
I think so. Even the Clintons in the 90's were for strong borders, not Islam apologists and Islamophobia fighters and not pushing the LGBTQ agenda on children that we see today.


And I would say that they are the reason this country is so divided. The Democrat Party has gone so far left on many issues, there is no common ground on some of these.

Even back in the 90's many Democrats could agree that borders should be secure and don't have transgender storytime for children at the library.


Anyway, Yes or No, and explain your answer.

Socially more left? Without a doubt.

Economically more left? lolololololollolololololololololololololololololololololollololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol.........

LolololololollolololololololololololololololoLolololololollolololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol......

Lol

Also let's not forget who president amnesty was.........pssst, it was Reagan.
 
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