Quote (Thor123422 @ Jan 21 2021 01:49pm)
You're right. Everybody who disagrees with me isn't a shill. In fact there are MANY people on this forum I disagree with but have never once called a shill.
The Democratic party has not moved significantly left from where it was 12 years ago. The movement left has largely been limited to their willingness to pay lip service to leftist causes, but has resulted in virtually no action in actually enacting those policies. Hell let's take gay marriage. Obama didn't lift a finger to get gays the right to marry except for not defending DOMA. It was a supreme court decision. Perfect example of where Democrats paid lip service to a policy but didn't actually take action on it despite it being massively popular. Healthcare? Won't even vote on national healthcare, and Obamacare was the default Republican position until Democrats started wanting to pass it too. I could go on. Democrats are mostly stagnant, and Republicans are lurching right. There is a small progressive force in the Democrat party but as of now it has virtually zero power in the party.
I have no interest in knowing who you think is or isn't a shill. I am letting you know that you appear to be incapable of forming an argument without devolving into one personal attack or another. Either your opponent is a bad person, or they're dishonest, or they're a shill. It reflects poorly on you.
Obama ran against gay marriage. Every major Democrat is now for gay marriage. Movement on this issue has therefore been to the left. Obamacare was the consensus Democratic position in 2008, every major Democratic candidate in 2020 is to the left of that. Movement on this issue is to the left. On the economic front, consider how Democrat / Democrat-leaning voters approached the label "socialist" then, and look now. Pollsters have been tracking this diligently, again, to the left. Democratic positions on virtually every single cultural battle have moved to the left., whether circa 2008 or earlier. Whether it's history (e.g. 1619 project), "woke culture", or attitudes towards censorship, the Democratic party today is aggressively to the left. Can you imagine a national push to defund the police in Bill Clinton's America?
The left wing of the Democratic party is a few years behind where the alt-right wing of the Republican party is in terms of mobilization, but they are disproportionately represented among activists and in media rooms across the country (see - NYT). Their time will come. Commentators already recognize that AOC and her, left-wing, cohort are where the energy of the Democratic party is. Concessions had to be made to Bernie Sanders in 2020 that were unthinkable only 4 years ago. Of course it's not what you want, just as I will never have a political party that I want, but that has no bearing on the direction of the party.
Corporations follow political power. The Democrats have gained from a cultural and institutional point of view. The new alliance between Democrats and corporations is not evidence that the Democrats have moved right, but evidence that corporations have moved left, as they see the gravity shift culturally to the left. Look at how the NFL responds to cultural political issues today and compare it against a few years ago. The changes are stark.
The Republican party has moved to the left culturally. See attitudes towards marijuana, gay marriage, etc. They've also moved to the left economically, see attitudes on entitlements and budget deficits. The Republicans aren't moving to the right on issues, but the Trump wing is certainly more extreme, similar to movement we are seeing on the left. The future of the left and right is not the green party and libertarians, it's thought police and demagogues.
This post was edited by bogie160 on Jan 21 2021 02:06pm