10 ms·

> The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US. Obama carried out mass deportations, claimed t

> The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US. Obama carried out mass deportations, claimed that undocumented migrants broke laws and must be held accountable, ordered extrajudicial execution of US citizen and was protected by executive privilege, invaded Pakistan to kidnap and execute Osama bin Laden, deposed Gaddafi and destroyed Libya, campaigned on a platform opposing gay marriage, wanted better relations with Russia and was secretly transmitting promises to Putin, vastly expanded the state surveillance apparatus, had citigroup appoint his cabinet, gave bankers bankers / wall st a pass for their role in the mortgage crisis. And he was (and very much still is), he was a darling of the left. When pressed, many will try to claim they never really liked him, disavowed those particular things about him, that he was actually a right-wing president, etc., which in a weasely way might be technically true, but the difference in decibels surrounding very similar actions betrays reality. The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade. Not sure why I see so many denying this. Unless you're trying to say they never cared about any of that and still don't they're simply cheerleading for their team, which is more cynical but more understandable I guess.

dragonwriter 10mo ago
> The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade. The only thing the American "mainstream left" did in the last decade is grow from a completely insignificant size, on a national scale, to a slightly less insignificant size, through a subset of the political disaffected becoming engaged (a big catalyst for that being Bernie Sanders 2016 primary campaign; DSA membership shot up, IIRC, more than 10-fold directly after that.) The set of viewpoints in that group didn't really change all that much, nor did the set of viewpoints in the actually mainstream groups left of the GOP (which themselves are not actually left, but center-right pro-capitalist.)
- stinkbeetle 10mo ago
  No, that's not the American mainstream left.
  - dragonwriter 10mo ago
    Its the closest thing to both mainstream and left that currently exists. And its also the source of the change in the overall Democratic coalition; the Democratic center-right that has been (and remains) the dominant faction of the party hasn't moved an inch, but the party as a whole has moved because the segment further left has grown substantially, mainly by mobilizing the previously disaffected.
    - stinkbeetle 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      - dragonwriter 10mo ago
        > No it's not, that's just something the left uses to deflect rather than take ownership of their own problems. No, it is the fucking left. > The democrat party essentially is the mainstream American left The US has no political party named “the democrat party”, and the Democratic Party is (as historically each of the two major US parties has normally been) a broad coalition party, the dominant faction of which currently is center-right neoliberal capitalist, not anything even approximating left. The center-left to left component of the party is substantially weaker (though it has grown stronger since 2016, with an influx of the previously disaffected, as I described.) On a very zoomed out aggregate level, sure, the Democratic Party has changed—and if that’s what you want to talk about, just say that—but the source of that change is the part that isn’t center-right neoliberal capitalist drawing in new blood from outside the party, not a change in the positions of the left (or, for that matter, a change in the position of the dominant faction of the part,y, either.) If you use “left” to refer to a faction that (1) is largely seen as an opposing force by those who identify as “left”, and (2) largely sees the “left” as the label of an opposing force, and (3) where even you admit there is a much clearer term for what you are actually referring to... Well, maybe you should reconsider your terminology.
        stinkbeetle 10mo ago
        No, you're just going berserk for no good reason. Everybody understood the words and the context, even you did despite feigning ignorance. These are commonly used terms, and were put in an entirely proper and understandable context. Having a little tanty on the internet won't change any of that that. Deal with it.

dragonwriter 10mo ago

> The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade. The only thing the American "mainstream left" did in the last decade is grow from a completely insignificant size, on a national scale, to a slightly less insignificant size, through a subset of the political disaffected becoming engaged (a big catalyst for that being Bernie Sanders 2016 primary campaign; DSA membership shot up, IIRC, more than 10-fold directly after that.) The set of viewpoints in that group didn't really change all that much, nor did the set of viewpoints in the actually mainstream groups left of the GOP (which themselves are not actually left, but center-right pro-capitalist.)

stinkbeetle 10mo ago
No, that's not the American mainstream left.
- dragonwriter 10mo ago
  Its the closest thing to both mainstream and left that currently exists. And its also the source of the change in the overall Democratic coalition; the Democratic center-right that has been (and remains) the dominant faction of the party hasn't moved an inch, but the party as a whole has moved because the segment further left has grown substantially, mainly by mobilizing the previously disaffected.
  - stinkbeetle 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    - dragonwriter 10mo ago
      > No it's not, that's just something the left uses to deflect rather than take ownership of their own problems. No, it is the fucking left. > The democrat party essentially is the mainstream American left The US has no political party named “the democrat party”, and the Democratic Party is (as historically each of the two major US parties has normally been) a broad coalition party, the dominant faction of which currently is center-right neoliberal capitalist, not anything even approximating left. The center-left to left component of the party is substantially weaker (though it has grown stronger since 2016, with an influx of the previously disaffected, as I described.) On a very zoomed out aggregate level, sure, the Democratic Party has changed—and if that’s what you want to talk about, just say that—but the source of that change is the part that isn’t center-right neoliberal capitalist drawing in new blood from outside the party, not a change in the positions of the left (or, for that matter, a change in the position of the dominant faction of the part,y, either.) If you use “left” to refer to a faction that (1) is largely seen as an opposing force by those who identify as “left”, and (2) largely sees the “left” as the label of an opposing force, and (3) where even you admit there is a much clearer term for what you are actually referring to... Well, maybe you should reconsider your terminology.
      - stinkbeetle 10mo ago
        No, you're just going berserk for no good reason. Everybody understood the words and the context, even you did despite feigning ignorance. These are commonly used terms, and were put in an entirely proper and understandable context. Having a little tanty on the internet won't change any of that that. Deal with it.