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Chomsky and Sanders are very different from the democratic party. The democratic party is to the left of the GOP but to the right of anything else, including th

• rdtsc 10y ago
  Alright good point. Heck Sanders and Chomsky might be centrists in Europe as well probably. > The democratic party is to the left of the GOP but to the right of anything else, I think at least in the PR domain they don't shy away from calling themselves "the left". Which I think it is interesting. And the left (if there is one, and that's separate point to talk) hasn't exactly disavowed or pushed against it too much. > but called it Trumpcare it would be super popular with GOP voters and maybe hated by democrat voters. The fascinating thing is Trump has picked up "the concern for the workers", NAFTA and TPP as central talking points and ran with it. That was Democrat's bread-and-butter in the past. I am not sure if it was is sincere or pure opportunism (he did pull out of TPP, so that's something...). But I can't deny that it was a good strategy for him. Even more interesting to me is to see that as soon as he did those things, the new "left" almost immediately reverted to talk about "how TPP is great" and "NAFTA is a good thing" and workers are just idiots brainwashed by fake news and such. I was watching Reddit's /r/politics and after TPP pull-out and there were posts explicitly saying "we have to support TPP because Trump is against". There is something fascinating there, I think. Remembering the DNC primaries with TPP signs everywhere. And then few months later "what do you mean, we love the TPP".
  • kmonsen 10y ago
    Trump is running on "the concern for the voters", but in my humble opinion none of his solutions are going to be good for workers. There will be less healthcare, less worker protections and less taxes paid by rich people. The TPP is interesting in that as I understand it was meant to be a big political bargain to fence in China with a lot of concessions give to large cooperations. Another thing is that free trade in general is good for poor workers somewhere, but unless it comes with some agreement on worker protections they will all be eroded in the long run. Both left wing and right wing people can find something to like there, it depends on how it is implemented. Kind of like UBI which the far right and the far left in theory agree to, they just use the same name for widely different things.
• grzm 10y ago
  The democratic party is to the left of the GOP but to the right of anything else, including the American people. I'm assuming you mean big-D Democratic Party. When you say American people, what do you mean? A majority? How much of one? What are you basing this on? Polls? If so, which ones? Something else? I'm pushing a little because the statement seems to lack nuance, which is something I think we so desperately need in American political discourse.
  • kmonsen 10y ago
    I agree, I am basing it on things I vaguely remember having read and a tiny bit out of my ass. Chomsky uses this a consistent talking point, sorry again no reference, that the polls are consistently to the left of the Democrats. I wish I could give you a better answer, and will concede my documentation is lacking. I do believe this is true based on my conversations with Democrat and GOP voters when living here. Most people are fairly leftist when it comes to specifics, well except paying taxes.
    • kmonsen 10y ago
      A quick Google search shows this repeated talking point by Chomsky: https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky%20public%20opinion%20to%20the%20left&rct=j https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky%20public%20opinion%2...
    • grzm 10y ago
      Thanks for providing your source. Having lived on both coasts and the Midwest, I've met a lot of people of a variety of political stripes, and wouldn't agree with this unqualified assessment.
      • kmonsen 10y ago
        For sure not a clear objective truth, it is hard to have a discussion about objective values in these hyper partisan times.