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The Democratic Party becoming liberal is a recent development. In 2006, 32% of Democrats identified as liberal. 23% were conservative (the rest identified as

The Democratic Party becoming liberal is a recent development. In 2006, 32% of Democrats identified as liberal. 23% were conservative (the rest identified as moderate). In 2018 it's 46% liberal/35% moderate/17% conservative. That means that even today, a minority of Democrats are liberals. An even smaller minority are progressives. The Democrats are not and have never been a majority liberal party, although that is rapidly changing. The reason democrats like Manchin and Sinema block liberal policies is that they are conservatives. Both parties have traditionally had sizable liberal and conservative wings, but they are rapidly polarizing and Democrats are pushing out the conservatives. In the 90s there would be about 20 Democratic senators like Manchin, now we only have a couple. >In response to the Dobbs leak the Democrats did... nothing. Everyone who follows politics knew that when Hillary lost in 2016, Roe v. Wade would inevitably be overturned. There's nothing we can do about this in the short term, especially when we don't have liberal majorities. I'm going to disagree on your main point- social issues are the main problem in the US and they cannot be distinguished from economic ones. Abortion, for example, is an economic issue. Allowing women to control their reproduction is, by far, the most effective way to combat poverty. A child costs over $250,000 to raise on average, and that's the type of burden that keeps people in poverty. Abortion rights have strong support among the wealthy; this is not a case of the "elites" dividing the working class, it's the working class that supports regressive policies. Also, wealthy countries that are ethnically and culturally homogenous generally have much stronger social support systems than the US. This is, again, a social issue. Americans don't want their taxpayer money helping people who they see as "different" so they vote against welfare programs. And again, the wealthier and better educated someone is the more progressive they are in this regard, this is another example of working class people shooting themselves in the foot.

rayiner 4y ago
> Abortion, for example, is an economic issue. Allowing women to control their reproduction is, by far, the most effective way to combat poverty. A child costs over $250,000 to raise on average, and that's the type of burden that keeps people in poverty. Abortion rights have strong support among the wealthy; this is not a case of the "elites" dividing the working class, it's the working class that supports regressive policies. Meanwhile, just 29% of folks who primarily speak Spanish at home, and 41% of first generation Hispanic immigrants, think abortion should be legal. If Democrats want to be the party of telling working class Hispanics that their views are “regressive” and the most important problem is that they can’t or won’t abort enough of their babies, that’s a dream come true for the GOP. Bonus points for “[a]bortion rights have strong support among the wealthy.” The attack ads write themselves. “Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley engineers think that their maids and gardeners are having too many kids and should abort more of them.”
Bloating 4y ago
We got Obamacare passed, but not a law codifing Row vs Wade. Its almost like its about money and power, and not personal freedom
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > We got Obamacare passed, but not a law codifing Row vs Wade. Codifying Roe v. Wade only makes sense as a symbolic act of protest against a court ruling against it when you lack the votes to do anything meaningful. Preemptively, it makes no sense, since a court that would reject the right held to exist in Roe as a 14th Amendment right is also sure to rule that no power granted to Congress allows it to curtail the powers reserved to states by codifying Roe.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> The Democratic Party becoming liberal is a recent development. It being the left-most of the two major political parties has been the case since it was clear how the emerging alignment from the long 20th century realignment was shaking out, by, say, the late 1960s. > In 2006, 32% of Democrats identified as liberal. 23% were conservative (the rest identified as moderate). In 2018 it’s 46% liberal/35% moderate/17% conservative. So…what? Unless you have some kind of calibration of where the people with these self-identifications place the liberal/moderate/conservative divides, this doesn’t tell you anything, since it can just as easily be interpreted as shift in what Democratic voters consider liberal vs. moderate. You can’t measure how liberal the Democratic Party is by how liberal Democrats see themselves. > That means that even today, a minority of Democrats are liberals. An even smaller minority are progressives. The Democrats are not and have never been a majority liberal party, although that is rapidly changing. You seem to be using Pew data [0] for self-identification. But–while it lacks the kind of over-time comparison one might like (they’ve done it several time since the 1980s, but the methodology has changed), Pew also has a present (well, 2021) political typology derived by bucketing actual views into descriptive buckets: 51% of Democrats are in left/liberal buckets, 28% in a distinctly-Democratic group that tends to self-identify as moderate, 13% in a moderate group that is about evenly split between the two parties, and the remaining 8% in more typically Republican buckets (all of which are Right/Conservative.) [1] > The reason democrats like Manchin and Sinema block liberal policies is that they are conservatives. Neither seems to be a conservative (in any of the senses usually used within the American political spectrum.) Manchin might be in the equally-split “Stressed sideliners” bucket, maybe. Sinema has maybe made the most rapid transition from a far-left critic of the Democratic Party for being too friendly to the Right to the the very right edge of the Democratic coalition over her career as a political activist and politician…or she is just an ideology-free opportunist. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-make-up-largest-share-of-democratic-voters/ft_2020-01-17_demideology_01a/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-ma... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/the-democratic-coalition/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/the-democrat...

rayiner 4y ago

> Abortion, for example, is an economic issue. Allowing women to control their reproduction is, by far, the most effective way to combat poverty. A child costs over $250,000 to raise on average, and that's the type of burden that keeps people in poverty. Abortion rights have strong support among the wealthy; this is not a case of the "elites" dividing the working class, it's the working class that supports regressive policies. Meanwhile, just 29% of folks who primarily speak Spanish at home, and 41% of first generation Hispanic immigrants, think abortion should be legal. If Democrats want to be the party of telling working class Hispanics that their views are “regressive” and the most important problem is that they can’t or won’t abort enough of their babies, that’s a dream come true for the GOP. Bonus points for “[a]bortion rights have strong support among the wealthy.” The attack ads write themselves. “Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley engineers think that their maids and gardeners are having too many kids and should abort more of them.”

Bloating 4y ago

We got Obamacare passed, but not a law codifing Row vs Wade. Its almost like its about money and power, and not personal freedom

dragonwriter 4y ago
> We got Obamacare passed, but not a law codifing Row vs Wade. Codifying Roe v. Wade only makes sense as a symbolic act of protest against a court ruling against it when you lack the votes to do anything meaningful. Preemptively, it makes no sense, since a court that would reject the right held to exist in Roe as a 14th Amendment right is also sure to rule that no power granted to Congress allows it to curtail the powers reserved to states by codifying Roe.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> The Democratic Party becoming liberal is a recent development. It being the left-most of the two major political parties has been the case since it was clear how the emerging alignment from the long 20th century realignment was shaking out, by, say, the late 1960s. > In 2006, 32% of Democrats identified as liberal. 23% were conservative (the rest identified as moderate). In 2018 it’s 46% liberal/35% moderate/17% conservative. So…what? Unless you have some kind of calibration of where the people with these self-identifications place the liberal/moderate/conservative divides, this doesn’t tell you anything, since it can just as easily be interpreted as shift in what Democratic voters consider liberal vs. moderate. You can’t measure how liberal the Democratic Party is by how liberal Democrats see themselves. > That means that even today, a minority of Democrats are liberals. An even smaller minority are progressives. The Democrats are not and have never been a majority liberal party, although that is rapidly changing. You seem to be using Pew data [0] for self-identification. But–while it lacks the kind of over-time comparison one might like (they’ve done it several time since the 1980s, but the methodology has changed), Pew also has a present (well, 2021) political typology derived by bucketing actual views into descriptive buckets: 51% of Democrats are in left/liberal buckets, 28% in a distinctly-Democratic group that tends to self-identify as moderate, 13% in a moderate group that is about evenly split between the two parties, and the remaining 8% in more typically Republican buckets (all of which are Right/Conservative.) [1] > The reason democrats like Manchin and Sinema block liberal policies is that they are conservatives. Neither seems to be a conservative (in any of the senses usually used within the American political spectrum.) Manchin might be in the equally-split “Stressed sideliners” bucket, maybe. Sinema has maybe made the most rapid transition from a far-left critic of the Democratic Party for being too friendly to the Right to the the very right edge of the Democratic coalition over her career as a political activist and politician…or she is just an ideology-free opportunist. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-make-up-largest-share-of-democratic-voters/ft_2020-01-17_demideology_01a/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-ma... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/the-democratic-coalition/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/the-democrat...