these awful center left Democrats have won the popular vote in every election but one since 1992 (and 2004 was incredibly close), and you cannot pass any progressive legislation unless you have Democrats in congress who will pass progressive legislation. it seems pretty unfair to call 1992-2000 and 2008-2016 as periods of time when these respective presidents "never got anything done" -- it's kind of hard to take that seriously.
I disagree. I think the hero-worship of the Bill Clinton years as some sort of "golden age" of American politics, where reasoned left-center Dems got things done by compromising with a GOP that was at least willing to play ball is a big reason why the Democrats are having such trouble now. For two reasons: they've made it out to be way better than it was, and the world has changed over 20 years.
Obama accomplished some really nice things with how far we came in progressing with civil rights in a relatively short time span. But that's just one thing. I don't view his administration as some sort of great success. He's a centrist, and like many centrists, he outright fears anything farther left than where he is. There's a reason he publicly supported Macron but said nothing about Corbyn. It's very telling, and it highlights the hypocrisy of the people who claim the left won't bite the bullet and vote for compromise candidates.
I think this is far too simplistic of an answer.
There are several things at play here:
1. There is still a very sizeable population in the US that will take pause when speaking of purely left/ socialists economic policy.
2. Who CAN make the case? This is the part of your argument I take the biggest issue with, we haven't had anyone be able to make this case. Sanders was abysmal when talking specifics when it cane to economic issues. Most of his outspoken supporters in here, the same. So where are the experts on leftist economic policy that can sell it and make the case?
3. Like you pointed out, and like we're seeing now, just because you have control, it doesn't make it easy to pass sweeping agendas. There are still ways to obstruct.
Most of what Trump will "accomplish" in his term, if finished and can be held to only one term, while having long term effect won't last long if replaced in 2020. It's one of the effects of not slowly working to it and making the changes through the courts and by law.
I actually agree that the left needs to improve in terms of explaining things, though I don't value that nearly as much as you do. Technocrats don't win the day. That said, the issue is that the government isn't funded to compose legislation. Legislation is composed by think tanks, and has been for 40+ years. And the thing is: there are no leftist think tanks. There are plenty of right wings, and there are plenty of centrist ones masquerading as "leftist." But think tanks need funding and no one with that kind of money to spend wants to buck the capitalist system. Matt Bruenig is someone who is leading the charge to create a true leftist think tank, one that puts together the research and the legislative language that can become the foundation of policy leftist candidates can run on. That sort of action is going to be important in allowing for the spread of the DSA and like-minded political action groups that can spearhead a more organized leftist political future.
this can't be stated enough.
the country IS moving left. maybe it's not quick enough for some, but that doesn't change that it's been moving left for quite a while. if anything, the continued push to the left is what created TRUMP; the old way felt their world slipping away. and even then, they were only able to succeed via a threading of the electoral needle, while losing the popular by a large margin.
The country is moving left socially. But it's not moving left economically, and economics have way more to do with social justice than most are willing to admit. Wealth inequality impacts women and minorities more than it impacts white people, though it impacts everyone. And that's only getting worse. Between Citizens United, the continuing unwillingness by either political party to remotely challenge things, the continued increase in military spending and stripping of social programs to fund it ...
Yep. Obama the socialist commie Marxist atheist Muslim was ruining our country
So naturally a literal (self proclaimed) socialist was going to destroy Trump.
What I don't get about the conspiracy theories with Clinton is that she is this all powerful entity, in coordination with the DNC, and she was able to fuck over the messiah Bernie
But they weren't good enough to beat a fucking moron in Trump? We've seen how smart his campaign staff and now administration is, but she couldn't do it. Guess she used all the energy to beat Bernie ....by 4 million votes.
The GOP doesn't win by rallying its base with rabid freakouts about candidates like Obama. Trump got essentially the same number of votes that Romney and McCain got.
What swings elections is the ability of the Democratic Party to put out a candidate that inspires people to go to the polls. Why is voter suppression so important to Republicans? Because when more people vote, it's better for the Democrats. Obama created a coalition that worked to get him into office for a variety of reasons. One reason Clinton lost because she tried to recreate that exact coalition while ignoring the factors that made it work for Obama. Banking on minority turnout to stay the same in cities like Milwaukee without putting any effort in there is one example of the many missteps I'm talking about.
I think Sanders and Corbyn lost largely because of the same thing. They figured out how to get their messages through too late and ran out of time. Sanders never pieced together how to run a national campaign. The only thing I blame the DNC for is not recognizing an ace in the hole when they had one. While I think this board is almost hilariously willing to apologize for Clinton and moderate Dems (I'm sure I'd be run out of here with pitchforks if I were to bring up Clinton using prison labor in the Arkansas Governor's mansion), I don't think it was a conspiracy that kept Sanders from winning. I just think Democrats don't value the right things because they're uninterested in tackling the real problem of reshaping the economy. And it trickles down into so many of their continued failures in recent years.
