26 ms·

I agree. Reductive analogy time: A donkey and an elephant are walking down a road, the donkey in the middle, the elephant on the right, both tied on either end

by smush 7y ago

I agree. Reductive analogy time: A donkey and an elephant are walking down a road, the donkey in the middle, the elephant on the right, both tied on either end of a rope. Over a span, the donkey pulled to the left and the elephant, in degrees, moved to the center. Now the donkey is on the left of the road and the elephant is in the middle of the road. The friction we are currently experiencing is that while the donkey wants to go further to the left, and has continued pulling to the left, the elephant has decided not to allow itself to be moved any further and thus is still in the center. The donkey does not like not being able to continue moving to the left. The elephant does not like continually being pulled to the left and perhaps like to move back towards the right side of the road. So they are both pulling in opposite directions, the donkey worrying that the elephant will use its greater strength to force the donkey to the right, and the elephant worrying that the donkey will use its greater speed to force the elephant to the left. This analogy is not comprehensive, but maybe it will help someone frame some of the reasons why the one tribe is so angry at the other and vice versa.

zimpenfish 7y ago
> the elephant is in the middle of the road Are you seriously claiming that the Republicans are a centrist party?
- smush 7y ago
  I am not. Left/center/right on the analogous road are only fuzzy matches to the words' meanings in the political spectrum sense, specifically, the US political spectrum relative to the 90s vs today.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> This analogy is not comprehensive Or even remotely accurate; the Republican Party has been moving consistently, though at varying speeds, to the right since at least the 1980s; the Democratic Party made a huge jump to the right (and very close to the Republicans) in the early 1990s, ushering in the brief period of the neoliberal consensus before the sharp acceleration in the rightward movement of the Republican Partyp, stayed stuck in essentially the same position for a while, and has moved a little bit to the left over the last couple years. Not only are you wrong about the direction each party is moving, you are wrong on a more fundamental level about the idea that the distance between them is fixed (or, at least, that the recent movement has been constrained by an upper bound on that distance forcing them to move together.)
- jki275 7y ago
  The Republican Party has moved to the left, not the right, since the 80s. The Democrat party has moved farther to the left than the Republicans have. It's actually a reasonable analogy.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The Republican Party has moved to the left, not the right, since the 80s. No, they've moved consistently to the right, the most dramatic manifestations of this movement being with the Contract with America in 1994 and Trump in 2016+. > The Democrat party It's the Democratic Party; the misuse of the noun form in place of the adjective is a weird tic of Republican activists. > has moved farther to the left than the Republicans ha Well, it's moved a little to the left recently while the Republicans have continued their journey to the far right, after basically moving to a position nearly identical to the Republicans of the time on economic issues and slightly to the left on, but deprioritizing, social issues with the Clintonian center-right neoliberalism of the 1990s.
    - jki275 7y ago
      Most of the "Contract with America" is not a right wing thing (shown by the fact it had broad support and catapulted the Republican Party back to power), and Trump is not a right wing person. He's a barely middle of the road person who would have been considered quite unsuited to be a Republican in the 80s. The Republican Party of the 80s would never have nominated someone who would nominate a gay ambassador -- the Democratic Party likely would not have either. Washington in general has shifted quite far to the left since the 80s. And "democrat" vs "democratic" is probably an autocorrect "tic". I'm also not a Republican, and certainly not an "activist" in any way. My personal beliefs are that almost all politicians are simply interested in power and say the things they think will get them elected -- and in general the striking differences between the parties are on which programs they want to spend the money that does not exist. Bill would not be able to get the nomination of the Democratic Party today -- he would be considered far too right wing.

by smush 7y ago

zimpenfish 7y ago

> the elephant is in the middle of the road Are you seriously claiming that the Republicans are a centrist party?

smush 7y ago
I am not. Left/center/right on the analogous road are only fuzzy matches to the words' meanings in the political spectrum sense, specifically, the US political spectrum relative to the 90s vs today.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> This analogy is not comprehensive Or even remotely accurate; the Republican Party has been moving consistently, though at varying speeds, to the right since at least the 1980s; the Democratic Party made a huge jump to the right (and very close to the Republicans) in the early 1990s, ushering in the brief period of the neoliberal consensus before the sharp acceleration in the rightward movement of the Republican Partyp, stayed stuck in essentially the same position for a while, and has moved a little bit to the left over the last couple years. Not only are you wrong about the direction each party is moving, you are wrong on a more fundamental level about the idea that the distance between them is fixed (or, at least, that the recent movement has been constrained by an upper bound on that distance forcing them to move together.)

jki275 7y ago
The Republican Party has moved to the left, not the right, since the 80s. The Democrat party has moved farther to the left than the Republicans have. It's actually a reasonable analogy.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The Republican Party has moved to the left, not the right, since the 80s. No, they've moved consistently to the right, the most dramatic manifestations of this movement being with the Contract with America in 1994 and Trump in 2016+. > The Democrat party It's the Democratic Party; the misuse of the noun form in place of the adjective is a weird tic of Republican activists. > has moved farther to the left than the Republicans ha Well, it's moved a little to the left recently while the Republicans have continued their journey to the far right, after basically moving to a position nearly identical to the Republicans of the time on economic issues and slightly to the left on, but deprioritizing, social issues with the Clintonian center-right neoliberalism of the 1990s.
  - jki275 7y ago
    Most of the "Contract with America" is not a right wing thing (shown by the fact it had broad support and catapulted the Republican Party back to power), and Trump is not a right wing person. He's a barely middle of the road person who would have been considered quite unsuited to be a Republican in the 80s. The Republican Party of the 80s would never have nominated someone who would nominate a gay ambassador -- the Democratic Party likely would not have either. Washington in general has shifted quite far to the left since the 80s. And "democrat" vs "democratic" is probably an autocorrect "tic". I'm also not a Republican, and certainly not an "activist" in any way. My personal beliefs are that almost all politicians are simply interested in power and say the things they think will get them elected -- and in general the striking differences between the parties are on which programs they want to spend the money that does not exist. Bill would not be able to get the nomination of the Democratic Party today -- he would be considered far too right wing.