Post
by Diotima » Thu May 25, 2017 4:59 pm
Hillary Clinton perfectly represents the ideology of the Democratic party, which is a center-left, non-radical and non-extremist party. That ideology is represented by a basic trust in our public and private institutions, a realistic acknowledgement of where they are inadequate or inappropriate, and an incremental and procedural attitude towards the reforms necessary to achieve the desired ends our present institutions fail to achieve. That she failed to overwhelmingly defeat Trump, and that Democrats fail to overwhelmingly defeat Republicans, has everything to do with that Republican culture, which is insidious and seeps even into those on the left, and infects people with a desire for unwarranted radicalism and rhetorical extremism. Don't get me wrong, I personally think Democrats could stand to be a lot more radical on some of their policy positions. They need to be talking about returning to pre-Nixonian levels of taxation, and supporting Medicare-for-all universal single-payer health care. But their caution and reticence in adopting those positions is an inherent part of their centrism, a desire to have it proven that such radical changes to American institutions is warranted, rather than merely suspected, and I cannot fault them much for that. At least they're heading in the right direction.
People are disgusted with Democrats for no other reason than that Republicans, church leaders who've been corrupted by them, fake news and talk radio have told them to be. The rhetoric they generate is insidious and deceptive, to the degree that I even found myself being tempted into the rhetorical and logical fallacies, and the blind speculation they promoted to deceive and divide, in this last election. That you think Dems pat Saudis on the back, while it has been Democrats, when they have power, pushing back against their human rights abuses and refusing to sell them weapons, while Republicans go so far as to hide both their relationships with them, as well as conceal and deflect the Saudi's involvement with terrorist organizations, is evidence of this insidiousness. That you think being among the "biggest names on Wall Street" automatically makes one suspect, if not outright evil, is further evidence of their deceptiveness and fallaciousness insinuating itself into the thinking of an otherwise intelligent individual.
The Democratic Party exists to get Democrats elected, and to do that, they adopt ideologies and policy positions they think will be helpful and desired by their constituents. You don't vote for them just because they're Democrats. And that's, in part, why they fail so often, because that's the responsible and democratic way to do that, and because that's not how Republicans operate. The Republican Party exists solely to get Republicans elected as well, but the ideologies and policy positions they publicly support are not because they think they will be helpful or even particularly desireable by their constituents, but because they can rhetorically use those items to build an identity, and cultivate voters who will vote for Republicans for no other reason than that they are Republicans, and who will oppose Democrats for no other reason than that they are Democrats.
And I'm glad you brought up Clinton and Obama. Bill won his first term without winning the popular vote, on the heels of a Republican President who had lost the faith of his party, due to actually trying to govern responsibly and raise taxes when he was trying to prosecute a war. He won his second term as much because his first term was not a failure and due to some good economic luck, as because Republicans ended up running a dinosaur in the own party, who was almost a relic of the days when Republicans did have a modicum of political responsibility. Obama won on the heels of a disaster of a President, running against another relic of a Republican who still displayed some faith in our institutions. And because he was running as a member of the party opposing the sitting President, he was able to adopt a veneer radicalism that co-opted much of conservative culture's inculcation of radicalism, in spite of his very centrist and incrementalist tendencies. And he won again because Republicans again ran an institutionalist, and because his Presidency was a remarkable success story coming after W's debacle, in spite of many leftists feeling betrayed by the lack of a public option in the ACA, and a hawkish foreign policy. Both won in spite of ongoing losses at local and state levels for Democrats. The general trend for Democrats since Reagan has been downward because they haven't figured out a responsible way to counter Republican's insidious and irresponsible culture of political identity. But Republican's hold on power is more tenuous than the numbers would suggest, as that identity is being more and more rejected, particularly by demographics that are growing, and because people are coming to recognize that the conservative political identity is not about "small government" or "Christian values," but really about incompetence, intolerance and bullying.
