It wasn’t always lies. The game changed when the other side started electing their extremists, but worse, those more in the center have done fuck-all with what power they do have to act as a check on those other elected extremists.
I think the reason progressives are winning now is that voters have nothing to lose. Far right extremists will fuck them. Most of those closest to the center won’t help them, and there’s now a precedent of voting in extremists (currently far right) into high office.
If anything I think the elected far right extremists were the best argument for voting for those farther left. There’s also the Overton window. 2008’s Obama championing the ACA and the 2015 Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision looks quite progressive compared to today’s centerists.
Running to the center is why fascism arrived, and Democrats have been espousing it as a strategy since the 80’s, while Democrats as a brand have basically given up on the concept that government can be a force for good in peoples lives.
If anything, I would say that running in the “center,” abandoning any pretense of hope for a better future for the chance to join a modern aristocracy, is far more of an extremist take than any leftist. If I tell Mamdani the price of bread is too high, he will see it and know it; if I tell Schumer, he won’t understand. What is the mark of extremism but the disengagement with reality?
But picking one specific even to try to define an administration isn’t very helpful. By your same measure you could define Carter as a right wing extremist for overthrowing the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1979.
I’ve never understood that argument. He used some words that evoked the feeling of progressivism. But at no point did he actually say he was progressive or present a progressive vision. He was always slightly left of center, and very clearly ran as that, while having a campaign that appealed broadly. I honestly think people took “hope”, " change" and first black president and just assumed it.
I challenge you to find even one piece of Obama campaign lit that actually presented him as a progressive.
I always maintain that the timeline split with the assassination of RFK. Had he lived, he would have been elected president, instead of Nixon, Vietnam would have ended much earlier, and America would have gone down a brighter path in the 70s, instead of the dark path we’re still on.
More importantly, Nixon wouldn’t have resigned, inspiring aides Cheney and Ailes to conceive a Conservative Propaganda Machine, that would start slowly, but pick up speed after the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan in 1986, and the rise of Rush Limbaugh, who bears the credit/responsibility of the 1994 Congressional election, which saw Gingrich and the proto-MAGAs take over Congress, and then the establishment of FoxNews.
It’s all Sirhan’s fault. He may be the most influential person of the post-WWII era.
Rewind it further and Johhny doesn’t get assassinated, exposes the remainders of the Business Plot and dismantles the military industrial complex before it gets further entrenched. Those two moves would have cut off a lot of the forces which led to where we are now.
It wasn’t always lies. The game changed when the other side started electing their extremists, but worse, those more in the center have done fuck-all with what power they do have to act as a check on those other elected extremists.
I think the reason progressives are winning now is that voters have nothing to lose. Far right extremists will fuck them. Most of those closest to the center won’t help them, and there’s now a precedent of voting in extremists (currently far right) into high office.
If anything I think the elected far right extremists were the best argument for voting for those farther left. There’s also the Overton window. 2008’s Obama championing the ACA and the 2015 Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision looks quite progressive compared to today’s centerists.
I’m surprised what happened to Roe V. Wade hasn’t happened to Obergefell
Though I believe Democrats actually codified Obergefell into law… The “Respect For Marriage” act
Running to the center is why fascism arrived, and Democrats have been espousing it as a strategy since the 80’s, while Democrats as a brand have basically given up on the concept that government can be a force for good in peoples lives.
If anything, I would say that running in the “center,” abandoning any pretense of hope for a better future for the chance to join a modern aristocracy, is far more of an extremist take than any leftist. If I tell Mamdani the price of bread is too high, he will see it and know it; if I tell Schumer, he won’t understand. What is the mark of extremism but the disengagement with reality?
Both Republicans and Democrats would run to the center for success. Bush Senior and Bush Junior were also centrist. It wasn’t just a Democrat thing.
Wait the guy who waged an illegal war against an innocent country for oil was a centrist?
Compared to trump? Absolutely.
But picking one specific even to try to define an administration isn’t very helpful. By your same measure you could define Carter as a right wing extremist for overthrowing the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1979.
Jimmy Carter, such a grifter and warhawk!
/s
The bar for presidents is quite low.
Turns out politics wasn’t the game, it was limbo all along.
Obama won because he succesfully claimed to be a progressive
I’ve never understood that argument. He used some words that evoked the feeling of progressivism. But at no point did he actually say he was progressive or present a progressive vision. He was always slightly left of center, and very clearly ran as that, while having a campaign that appealed broadly. I honestly think people took “hope”, " change" and first black president and just assumed it.
I challenge you to find even one piece of Obama campaign lit that actually presented him as a progressive.
The extremism started because neoliberal centrists abandoned middle America for years.
Which happened during the first term of Bill Clinton.
I’m not following you. Are you saying Bill Clinton was a left extremist?
No, very far from it!
I’m saying that far right demagogues, under the leadership of Newt Gingrich, took over the GOP during his first term.
Though in truth, the process had its infancy under Nixon if not even earlier.
Fucking rush Limbaugh is a majority of the reason that “everyday” people moved to the far far right
I always maintain that the timeline split with the assassination of RFK. Had he lived, he would have been elected president, instead of Nixon, Vietnam would have ended much earlier, and America would have gone down a brighter path in the 70s, instead of the dark path we’re still on.
More importantly, Nixon wouldn’t have resigned, inspiring aides Cheney and Ailes to conceive a Conservative Propaganda Machine, that would start slowly, but pick up speed after the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan in 1986, and the rise of Rush Limbaugh, who bears the credit/responsibility of the 1994 Congressional election, which saw Gingrich and the proto-MAGAs take over Congress, and then the establishment of FoxNews.
It’s all Sirhan’s fault. He may be the most influential person of the post-WWII era.
Rewind it further and Johhny doesn’t get assassinated, exposes the remainders of the Business Plot and dismantles the military industrial complex before it gets further entrenched. Those two moves would have cut off a lot of the forces which led to where we are now.