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HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right. This has left many poor and angry people in the dust. Many have gravitated toward Trump. Yes, poor people are

HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right. This has left many poor and angry people in the dust. Many have gravitated toward Trump. Yes, poor people are more likely to be criminals and racists but let's be real, mainstream pols have been speaking racist language in a more coded and subtle way for a long time. It has always been ugly. HRC has done it herself when it benefits her. What irritates me about this essay and the "stop Trump" argument for HRC in general, is that it supposes that it is not necessary to hold one's chosen candidate accountable and that we should just get on board and be grateful someone is running against Trump. I could never vote for either candidate. But Trump's stark and unthinking narrative is matched by a similarly stark and unthinking anti-Trump narrative.

int_19h 10y ago
> HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right. Comparing the Democratic platform over the past several presidential cycles side by side does not support this assertion. Indeed, it has steadily moving left since Obama, and Clinton was pretty much forced to follow in the primaries. She didn't move as far left as the Sanders crowd (myself included) hoped, but we still got a pretty good platform this year.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > Indeed, it has steadily moving left since Obama, I'm not sure you could possibly be serious. - Obama continued and escalated GWB's wars and ramped up the war on whistleblowers and the use of drone assassination and terror campaigns. - Obamacare was a big corporate giveaway, ushering in the new Halliburtons of Healthcare. The Mylan epi-pen fiasco is one example among many of how the program catered to corporate interests and profits extensively. Ironically this was one reason Obama beat HRC 8 years ago, his healthcare plan was much more open to compromises with incumbent pharma and medical supply companies. He signaled this effectively through a few minor differences with HRC's plan way back then, and it got him elected. - The only trending leftward has been inevitable changes in social values (support of gay marriage, marijuana legalization, etc.) that are an inevitable part of the oldest generation of social conservative voters dying off. Both Obama and HRC lagged by about 4-8 years on gay marriage (both opposed it until it was abundantly safe to support it). - There has been no serious reform of Wall Street, no serious GSE reform, and Obama has called for the significant expansion of student loan programs... which are the only kind of debt not discharged when someone declares bankruptcy, making them extremely socially regressive and akin to debt slavery. Someone who is 18 taking on massive debt to attend college is not an informed consumer and does not deserve debt that they will be straddled with no matter what circumstances befall them later. These are just a few examples. There is a reason why so many Republicans (including the Bush family) has endorsed HRC -- she's essentially running a Republican platform, with a few easily broken promises to the left thrown in.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    What is your baseline?
    - grandalf 10y ago
      Well, Republicans have been moving to the left for a while too... GWB ran on the idea of "compassionate conservatism" which was another way of saying that the Federal government should spend more money on social welfare programs. For GWB, it meant ensuring the support of a wide variety of faith-based organizations who saw it as an opportunity to get some free money, and when it worked to help get GWB two terms, the GOP realized it was a winning strategy. It helped counteract some of the appropriations championed by Democrats that resulted in lots of loyal voters. Similarly, post-911 the neoconservative faction of the GOP took a strong hold on power. The older generation of Republicans, many of whom had served in combat, were far more weary of costly foreign wars, but the young generation, most of whom had not served, were eager to seize upon the opportunities left around the globe after the fall of the Soviet Union. The invasion of Iraq was neoconservative: It was sold on the basis of its alleged humanitarian objective (freeing women who were oppressed under Saddam) but also on the basis of the grand existential threat of terrorism. Americans had to be sold on the idea that the war made sense, and GWB and his neoconservative team created a villain out of Saddam, Hans Blix the UN weapons inspector, the European countries that urged restraint, etc. Of course, this was all so that the US could invade a country that had once been part of a proxy war with the USSR and was now essentially available for the taking. We've seen US dependence on Israel decrease post Iraq invasion, as we now have our own territory for bases and our own projection of force in the region. The current situation with Syria is Russia's latent attempt to retaliate and not lose its last foothold in the middle east. The Iran deal was (seemingly unsuccessfully) intended to be a carrot preventing Iran from aligning with Russia, etc. Neoconservatism has been described as "liberals with guns" because there is an element of a moralistic crusade behind the war, and the war often does not involve direct threats to national security. Post Saddam, the US doled out the Iraqi oil industry contracts to American and coalition firms, effectively redistributing Iraq's trillions in oil wealth substantially, cutting out French and German companies that had won these lucrative contracts before. In spite of campaigning against Bush's wars, Obama has generally kept the same ideological approach. For all the ranting about Obamacare, the GOP largely supported it, mainly because there are enough firms in GOP districts to result in the required number of votes. At this point, the main reason the GOP would want to change Obamacare is to make it more lucrative for specific firms, not because of any sort of philosophical disagreement with the program. So both parties are converging on what I'd call corporatist neoconservative centrism. It generally preserves the status quo, the broad policy strokes are bold plays to enrich massive industries through public/private partnerships (middle eastern oil, US healthcare, US housing, US financial services, etc). Foreign policy is heavily propaganda-based and heavily moralistic in its tone, foreign leaders are subject to ad hominem attacks, and existential evils are spoken about with the wide-eyed seriousness of children discussing fairytales. When you think about, say, Jeb Bush's platform and HRC's, there is little difference when you filter for issues that would ever actually come to a vote. Notable in the leaked emails was the HRC team scrambling early on in response to a speech by Jeb Bush which they described as "HRC agrees with all of this". They were fearful that his messaging approach was better than what they'd come up with. The biggest beneficiaries of the idea that HRC is "extremely liberal" or that Jeb is "extremely conservative" are the candidates themselves. They create the illusion of difference were little exists. Many of the other leaked HRC emails show that she holds or recently held many socially conservative views to go along with her free-trade pro-wall-street economic views. These things aren't a surprise, but they do provide actual evidence of the profound similarity between the two parties.

int_19h 10y ago

> HRC has moved the Democratic Party to the right. Comparing the Democratic platform over the past several presidential cycles side by side does not support this assertion. Indeed, it has steadily moving left since Obama, and Clinton was pretty much forced to follow in the primaries. She didn't move as far left as the Sanders crowd (myself included) hoped, but we still got a pretty good platform this year.

grandalf 10y ago
> Indeed, it has steadily moving left since Obama, I'm not sure you could possibly be serious. - Obama continued and escalated GWB's wars and ramped up the war on whistleblowers and the use of drone assassination and terror campaigns. - Obamacare was a big corporate giveaway, ushering in the new Halliburtons of Healthcare. The Mylan epi-pen fiasco is one example among many of how the program catered to corporate interests and profits extensively. Ironically this was one reason Obama beat HRC 8 years ago, his healthcare plan was much more open to compromises with incumbent pharma and medical supply companies. He signaled this effectively through a few minor differences with HRC's plan way back then, and it got him elected. - The only trending leftward has been inevitable changes in social values (support of gay marriage, marijuana legalization, etc.) that are an inevitable part of the oldest generation of social conservative voters dying off. Both Obama and HRC lagged by about 4-8 years on gay marriage (both opposed it until it was abundantly safe to support it). - There has been no serious reform of Wall Street, no serious GSE reform, and Obama has called for the significant expansion of student loan programs... which are the only kind of debt not discharged when someone declares bankruptcy, making them extremely socially regressive and akin to debt slavery. Someone who is 18 taking on massive debt to attend college is not an informed consumer and does not deserve debt that they will be straddled with no matter what circumstances befall them later. These are just a few examples. There is a reason why so many Republicans (including the Bush family) has endorsed HRC -- she's essentially running a Republican platform, with a few easily broken promises to the left thrown in.
- int_19h 10y ago
  What is your baseline?
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Well, Republicans have been moving to the left for a while too... GWB ran on the idea of "compassionate conservatism" which was another way of saying that the Federal government should spend more money on social welfare programs. For GWB, it meant ensuring the support of a wide variety of faith-based organizations who saw it as an opportunity to get some free money, and when it worked to help get GWB two terms, the GOP realized it was a winning strategy. It helped counteract some of the appropriations championed by Democrats that resulted in lots of loyal voters. Similarly, post-911 the neoconservative faction of the GOP took a strong hold on power. The older generation of Republicans, many of whom had served in combat, were far more weary of costly foreign wars, but the young generation, most of whom had not served, were eager to seize upon the opportunities left around the globe after the fall of the Soviet Union. The invasion of Iraq was neoconservative: It was sold on the basis of its alleged humanitarian objective (freeing women who were oppressed under Saddam) but also on the basis of the grand existential threat of terrorism. Americans had to be sold on the idea that the war made sense, and GWB and his neoconservative team created a villain out of Saddam, Hans Blix the UN weapons inspector, the European countries that urged restraint, etc. Of course, this was all so that the US could invade a country that had once been part of a proxy war with the USSR and was now essentially available for the taking. We've seen US dependence on Israel decrease post Iraq invasion, as we now have our own territory for bases and our own projection of force in the region. The current situation with Syria is Russia's latent attempt to retaliate and not lose its last foothold in the middle east. The Iran deal was (seemingly unsuccessfully) intended to be a carrot preventing Iran from aligning with Russia, etc. Neoconservatism has been described as "liberals with guns" because there is an element of a moralistic crusade behind the war, and the war often does not involve direct threats to national security. Post Saddam, the US doled out the Iraqi oil industry contracts to American and coalition firms, effectively redistributing Iraq's trillions in oil wealth substantially, cutting out French and German companies that had won these lucrative contracts before. In spite of campaigning against Bush's wars, Obama has generally kept the same ideological approach. For all the ranting about Obamacare, the GOP largely supported it, mainly because there are enough firms in GOP districts to result in the required number of votes. At this point, the main reason the GOP would want to change Obamacare is to make it more lucrative for specific firms, not because of any sort of philosophical disagreement with the program. So both parties are converging on what I'd call corporatist neoconservative centrism. It generally preserves the status quo, the broad policy strokes are bold plays to enrich massive industries through public/private partnerships (middle eastern oil, US healthcare, US housing, US financial services, etc). Foreign policy is heavily propaganda-based and heavily moralistic in its tone, foreign leaders are subject to ad hominem attacks, and existential evils are spoken about with the wide-eyed seriousness of children discussing fairytales. When you think about, say, Jeb Bush's platform and HRC's, there is little difference when you filter for issues that would ever actually come to a vote. Notable in the leaked emails was the HRC team scrambling early on in response to a speech by Jeb Bush which they described as "HRC agrees with all of this". They were fearful that his messaging approach was better than what they'd come up with. The biggest beneficiaries of the idea that HRC is "extremely liberal" or that Jeb is "extremely conservative" are the candidates themselves. They create the illusion of difference were little exists. Many of the other leaked HRC emails show that she holds or recently held many socially conservative views to go along with her free-trade pro-wall-street economic views. These things aren't a surprise, but they do provide actual evidence of the profound similarity between the two parties.