5 ms·
We have a lower case conservative, pro-status-quo party. The Democrats. Even now all they can talk about is returning to normal (where normal describes the con
by hamdingers 11mo ago
We have a lower case conservative, pro-status-quo party. The Democrats.
Even now all they can talk about is returning to normal (where normal describes the conditions that led to the current state).
- lotsofpulp 11mo agoThey talk about increasing minimum salaries for exempt workers, paid sick and family leave, infrastructure funding, expanding access to healthcare, etc. How is that lower case conservative, or pro status quo?
- ceejayoz 11mo agoThose are pretty standard policies of center-right / conservative parties in Europe. (Plus the fact that Dems talk about some of these doesn't mean they think they're going to happen.)
- lotsofpulp 11mo agoSeems irrelevant to a discussion comparing US parties. >Plus the fact that Dems talk about some of these doesn't mean they think they're going to happen They literally got ACA passed by a hair, and were just shy of 2 Senate votes needed to enact all those policies I discussed in Biden's original BBB.
- ceejayoz 11mo agoWe're talking about a need for a party that no longer exists in the US. Why would we not look to similar examples out there in actual practice?
- hatthew 11mo agothis thread comes from a provocative quip that the democrats are conservative, with no mention whatsoever of any context other than america
- ceejayoz 11mo agoHere’s some American context: a ~3 minute video. Bush and Reagan, during the primaries, trying to win over Republicans, answering a question about immigration. https://youtu.be/YsmgPp_nlok https://youtu.be/YsmgPp_nlok That’s what American conservatism used to look like. Modern Dems talk a lot like that.
- anigbrowl 11mo agoOr even look at George @ Bush's calls for comprehensive immigration reform, and his repeated emphasis on treating all immigrants, legal or not, with dignity and courtesy: https://www.bushcenter.org/topics/immigration https://www.bushcenter.org/topics/immigration
- lobf 11mo agoCan you name an example?
- ceejayoz 11mo agoSure; the UK's Tories, or Germany's CDU, or Australia's Liberal (lol) Party. Hell, the right-wing ran on giving more money to the National Health Service as one of their Brexit arguments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_Leave_bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_Leave_bus (Including Farage, at times! https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum-nigel-farage-nhs-350-million-pounds-live-health-service-u-turn-a7102831.html https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-r...)
- triceratops 11mo agoBut that ended up being a lie. It almost feels like a pattern...
- almosthere 11mo agoThat's definitely left wing in the United States.
- ceejayoz 11mo agoThere's a big difference between "actually left wing" and "leftwards of 50% of a particular population". The US has very little actual big-L Left (ahem) left in it.
- beeflet 11mo agothis isn't europe
- lawn 11mo agoTrue. In the US everyone is to the right.
- iso1631 11mo agoSuccessive UK conservative prime ministers increased minimum wage 97% from May 2010 to May 2024 Normal earnings increased just 55% in that time and tracking inflation would have meant increasing 49.5%
- hamdingers 11mo agoThey notably do not talk about modifying the systems of governance that have prevented us from accomplishing those goals, which they have been "talking about" nearly the entire 40 years I've been alive. If I were to ignore their talk and judge purely based on action, it certainly seems like Democrats effect less change than Republicans. (to be clear about where I stand, when given a choice between a conservative party and a regressive party, I have always begrudgingly chosen the conservatives)
- jmye 11mo agoThey directly increased access to healthcare and infrastructure funding in the last 15 years, and both were very obvious, big bills. Perhaps it would behoove you to actually pay attention, instead of memeing online about things you don't actually know anything about?
- cogman10 11mo agoThe how matters. Since Clinton Democrats have been neoliberal (conservative). The mechanism they've chosen for all of their programs has been public private partnerships. Infrastructure funding, for example, has been "they created a slush fund for private companies to bid on". Healthcare was "They created a slush fund to pay for private insurance". And I'll point out, that they also made healthcare more expensive with this slush fund approach. Medicare Part C was created by the Clinton administration which, you guessed it, created a giant slush fund for private insurance that ends up being more expensive than Medicare Part A/B. I agree, democrats did expand access to healthcare, but they did it in the most expensive and easily corruptible way possible. The approach was literally a carbon copy of the Heritage foundation plan that Romney implemented in Mass.
- hamdingers 11mo agoDo you know any progressives? Do you follow any politics outside the US? I'm going to guess not, because your frame of reference for what a genuinely progressive win would look like is woefully miscalibrated. I suggest you rectify that before accusing anyone else of ignorance. Yes, they have had some incremental policy wins and done tremendous good for millions of people (while also making, e.g. healthcare more expensive/profitable). No, the occasional incremental policy win does not a progressive party make.
- cogman10 11mo agoYou'll notice that, except for paid sick leave, all these things are simply "keep the lights on" policies. That is conservatism. You might be confusing conservatism with libertarianism. Up until about Reagan, all these policies were considered conservative. Progressive policies aren't just about tweaking existing policy, it's about building new social structures. We've not seen anything really close to that in the US since roughly LBJ.
- ActorNightly 11mo agoNone of that is conservative or liberal or leftist its common sense that both parties should be able to agree on. There are policies that are logically the right thing to do.
- drnick1 11mo agoAnd then there is all the woke stuff, that is unfortunately what the Democrats have been associated with lately.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago"Woke" is more of a political weapon created by the right than any actual real concept. There's no consistent or fixed definition of woke. It's a blanket term applied to anything that MAGA dislikes at any given moment. Woke's only purpose is to manufacture outrage, and it didn't exist as a concept until MAGA made it one.
- tastyface 11mo agoCase in point: Dems in 2024 did not run on trans issues, almost at all, and yet Republicans spent millions to give the impression that they did.
- shumpy 11mo ago[flagged]
- cwillu 11mo ago“Their "first-ever female four-star admiral" appointed to lead the public health corps, which they falsely touted as a historic win for women, was actually a male transvestite.” What the fuck are you on about? The first female four-star admiral was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Howard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Howard, years before Levine.
- shumpy 11mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- jfengel 11mo agoInfrastructure funding is a pro-business position. At this point, most of the infrastructure that the Democrats are seeking funding for is maintenance, the definition of "status quo". So is minimum wage, despite all of the screaming. Minimum wages ensure the existence of a working class. When the minimum wage drops below subsistence, there are civil disruptions that are bas for business. When the Democrats expanded health care, they did so using a plan devised by the Heritage Foundation. It works on free-market principles, of consumers purchasing insurance from private enterprise. It is also very pro-business, creating a larger class of potential employees who can be hired without employer-sponsored benefits. Many democrats would indeed like a government-run universal health care plan. But it's not a majority of the party, which is indeed (as the OP said) dominated by the center-right.
- greedo 11mo agoWhen have there ever been "civil disruptions" due to a low minimum wage in the US? Federal minimum wage has been underwater all of my life. If the minimum wage law had any teeth (requiring Congress to stop fellating business owners), it would at least be tied to the inflation rate (as Social Security tends to be). If the Federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation since it's peak value in 1968, it would be close to $26/hour.
- tshaddox 11mo agoIf implemented with a modicum of competence (which is admittedly not a foregone conclusion) and over a sufficiently long period (probably at least longer than one or two 4-year terms), all of those things would almost certainly have positive effects on the economy.
- vasco 11mo agoBernie does, does anyone else? They were just in power and didn't do any of it.
- throwway120385 11mo agoYou should maybe read about all the things that died in the pocket filibuster.
- LarsKrimi 11mo agoThe concept of a "Minimum wage" in itself is anti-worker. The state is not a workers friend. The union is.
- 9dev 11mo agoWhat a weird stance. A minimum wage guarantees all citizens can live a life in basic dignity. A worker is, even if part of a union, still a citizen of a state. A state is the sum of its constituents. There is, beyond the bipartisan war, room for compromise and mutual understanding for the benefit of all.
- LarsKrimi 11mo agoA minimum wage only guarantees that all citizens can race towards a collective bottom determined by some easily bribable elites. Companies do not have to do a conscious effort to determine the lowest amount they can go. "Everyone else pays that rate too"
- ceejayoz 11mo ago> Companies do not have to do a conscious effort to determine the lowest amount they can go. But absent the rule, they would - and did - reliably go lower.
- platevoltage 11mo agoUnions are by far a net positive, but the way they fight against universal healthcare and minimum wage for people not fortunate enough to have the option of being in a union makes me question this belief.
- stackedinserter 11mo agoThey are anti-gun "progressive" nuts, how can they be "conservative". Their "normal" was destruction, so people voted trump in just to stop this idiocy (by starting a new one)
- xdennis 11mo agoThe far left always portrays the democrats as being too far left, even though both parties have moved to the left. In 2000, no country in the world accepted gay marriage, up until 2013 gay marriage was banned in California because the Californians elected to do so (it was overruled federally against the wishes of the Californians). In 2025, even a majority of Republicans (by some polls) support gay marriage. The far left always moves the goal posts. Once they legalized gay marriage, they considered it the norm instead of a wild idea that Republicans should fight to remove. That's why you see the rise of Christian nationalism. Many consider the average Republican to be too far left (similar to how leftists consider Democrats to be too far right). Personally, I'm for the Matrix opinion. In the Matrix, the future humans live in a simulated 1999 because it was considered the peak of human civilization. Socially, it was.
- sidereal1 11mo ago> The far left always moves the goal posts The goal of the far left has always been equality. It's the same goal that legalized interracial marriage. > That's why you see the rise of Christian nationalism We've always had an issue with Christian Nationalism in the US, and they use any excuse they can to push their agenda. If it's not gay marriage it's immigration, or trans rights, or whatever other wedge issue they can create a moral panic over. It's vital to remember that nationalist goals are absolute, but they will lie about it. They say they just want to protect women's sports to get their foot in the door, and then they're banning gender affirming care and looking to re-criminalize gay marriage. There's no reason to compromise with nationalists.
- cwillu 11mo agoI regret that I have but one upvote to give.
- beeflet 11mo agowe should try to make a new peak
- johnnyanmac 11mo agoI've been seeing a slow splinter as of late between "establshment"-style Democrats focused on decorum, and the progressive-style democrats focused on overhauling the status quo. There definitely seems to be a slow shift towards people who want to take real actions an not stay stifled in years talking about actions. Of course, the former won't let the latter perform without a fight. The campaign with Mamdami was one of many clashes on this, and there will be many more to come next year. Either way, a focus of not falling to fascism is the bare minimum agreement between all democrats. I just hope we don't all think the job is done once we get the bar back from being underground. It being on the floor still isn't a great look.