Why America is moving Left

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/127155/why-america-is-moving-left

Would Ru­bio be a more con­ser­vat­ive pres­id­ent than Obama? Of course. An era of lib­er­al dom­in­ance doesn’t mean that the ideo­lo­gic­al dif­fer­ences between Demo­crats and Re­pub­lic­ans dis­ap­pear. It means that on the ideo­lo­gic­al play­ing field, the 50-yard line shifts fur­ther left. It means the next Re­pub­lic­an pres­id­ent won’t be able to re­turn the na­tion to the pre-Obama era.

That’s what happened when Dwight Eis­en­hower fol­lowed Frank­lin D. Roosevelt and Harry Tru­man. Ike mod­er­ated the growth in gov­ern­ment ex­pan­sion that had be­gun in the 1930s, but he didn’t re­turn Amer­ic­an polit­ics to the 1920s, when the GOP op­posed any fed­er­al wel­fare state at all. He in es­sence rat­i­fied the New Deal. It’s also what happened when Bill Clin­ton fol­lowed Ron­ald Re­agan and George H. W. Bush. By passing pun­it­ive an­ticrime laws, re­peal­ing re­stric­tions on banks, sign­ing NAF­TA, cut­ting gov­ern­ment spend­ing to bal­ance the budget, re­form­ing wel­fare, and de­clar­ing that the “era of big gov­ern­ment is over,” Clin­ton ac­know­ledged that even a Demo­crat­ic pres­id­ent could not re­vive the full-throated lib­er­al­ism of the 1960s and ’70s. He rat­i­fied Re­agan­ism.

Barack Obama sought the pres­id­ency hop­ing to be the Demo­crats’ Re­agan: a pres­id­ent who changed Amer­ica’s ideo­lo­gic­al tra­ject­ory. And he has changed it. He has pushed the polit­ic­al agenda as dra­mat­ic­ally to the left as Re­agan pushed it to the right, and, as un­der Re­agan, the pub­lic has ac­qui­esced more than it has re­belled. Re­agan’s fi­nal vic­tory came when Demo­crats ad­ap­ted to the new polit­ic­al world he had made, and there is reas­on to be­lieve that the next Re­pub­lic­an pres­id­ent will find it ne­ces­sary to make sim­il­ar con­ces­sions to polit­ic­al real­ity.

This polit­ic­al cycle, too, will ul­ti­mately run its course. A sus­tained rise in crime could breed fis­sures between Afric­an-Amer­ic­an act­iv­ists and young whites or even Lati­nos. Slower eco­nom­ic growth and a rising budget de­fi­cit could turn the pub­lic against gov­ern­ment in a way that Obama’s policies have not—and force Demo­crats to again em­phas­ize the cre­ation of wealth more than its dis­tri­bu­tion. How this era of lib­er­al dom­in­ance will end is any­one’s guess. But it will likely en­dure for some time to come.

[Frodo]

I already have started a thread on this article. 

[Landslide Lyndon]

I already have started a thread on this article. 

I think this article deserves a thread here since it's mainly about policy.

jao

[Green Line]

Its not

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So this is why Republicans do a little better with each midterm and have gained control of the senate as recent as last year?  I get it, a dying party keeps gaining more seats.  How insightful!  Look, you people better learn how to talk to white conservative men between 25-55 or you'll never have our houses back!

It's pretty simple really... the GOP base is more likely to vote. So, yes, the GOP is weaker in numbers, but because the Dems have a serious issue with getting their base out in off-years, they're in trouble. It's just a reverse of most of the 20th Century, where the GOP was the party that could get its people out in Presidential years but the Democrats had such a stranglehold on Congress.

The challenge is getting the Democratic voters out the way they do in Presidentials, not pandering to conservative white men.

[Hillary pays minimum wage]

So this is why Republicans do a little better with each midterm and have gained control of the senate as recent as last year?  I get it, a dying party keeps gaining more seats.  How insightful!  Look, you people better learn how to talk to white conservative men between 25-55 or you'll never have our houses back!

It's pretty simple really... the GOP base is more likely to vote. So, yes, the GOP is weaker in numbers, but because the Dems have a serious issue with getting their base out in off-years, they're in trouble. It's just a reverse of most of the 20th Century, where the GOP was the party that could get its people out in Presidential years but the Democrats had such a stranglehold on Congress.

The challenge is getting the Democratic voters out the way they do in Presidentials, not pandering to conservative white men.

Democrats don't have the numbers they used to.  If they did, they'd be winning the house and senate as well.  We had a two term Democrat, two term Republican, now a two term Democrat.  It sounds like things have a pattern at the presidential level.  Since 1994, both houses have mostly been Republican.  Where is the argument that we're moving left coming from?  Also, Democrats used to do better with white men than they do now in the days where they don't have either house.

[Adam Griffin]

So this is why Republicans do a little better with each midterm and have gained control of the senate as recent as last year?  I get it, a dying party keeps gaining more seats.  How insightful!  Look, you people better learn how to talk to white conservative men between 25-55 or you'll never have our houses back!

It's pretty simple really... the GOP base is more likely to vote. So, yes, the GOP is weaker in numbers, but because the Dems have a serious issue with getting their base out in off-years, they're in trouble. It's just a reverse of most of the 20th Century, where the GOP was the party that could get its people out in Presidential years but the Democrats had such a stranglehold on Congress.

The challenge is getting the Democratic voters out the way they do in Presidentials, not pandering to conservative white men.

Democrats don't have the numbers they used to.  If they did, they'd be winning the house and senate as well.  We had a two term Democrat, two term Republican, now a two term Democrat.  It sounds like things have a pattern at the presidential level.  Since 1994, both houses have mostly been Republican.  Where is the argument that we're moving left coming from?  Also, Democrats used to do better with white men than they do now in the days where they don't have either house.

Like how we won the national House vote in 2012 by over a million votes? The GOP has held the Senate for a year; let's not act like there's some long-term dominance there. Since the beginning of the Reagan Era, Dems have held the House and the Senate for 20 out of 34 years. The House is the absolute worst metric for measuring the ideological sentiment of the country, because it's confined to individual enclaves of a few hundred thousand voters and the process under current urban/rural divides naturally benefits Republicans.

The Democrats held both chambers of Congress from 1981-1995: are you going to argue the country wasn't moving to the right during that time?

[ProgressiveCanadian]

Its not

You were left behind.

[Vosem]

It's easy to point to Supreme Court rulings, especially on gun rights and money-as-speech, that show policy moving to the right; DW Nominate scores, which are an objective measure, clearly show that Republicans have moved to the right without any Democratic movement in any direction. It's easy to cherrypick to show that the country is moving left or right (gay rights is a very easy issue to argue left with), but I don't think there's a clear pattern of movement in any direction (I guess you could argue left socially, but right economically, but that might be my own bias sneaking through).

The Democrats held both chambers of Congress from 1981-1995: are you going to argue the country wasn't moving to the right during that time?

Democrats did not control the Senate from 1981-1987, but regardless, at that time, the Democratic party had a large conservative faction, and right-wing Republican Presidents were able to push their agendas through. Congress has been, partially since 2010 and totally since 2014, controlled by the opposition to the Obama Presidency, in a way that Reagan never experienced.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Dems are gonna win presidency and control Senate, in 2016; &1994, 2010 & 2014 was coming anyways, due 1994 Brady bill.

But, 2020 is coming for the GOP, and it is doubtful the GOP will pick up the type of Senate seats, in 2018, that will give them long term control. In a neutral yr, ND & IN are gone while Dems pick up NV. Keeping Dems in charge.

America is moving left and immigration reform & minimum wage increase adjusted to inflation will eventually have its day
-

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

If Clinton is in charge, she's a John Kerry clone & close the tax loopholes at end of her term.

[hopper]

It's easy to point to Supreme Court rulings, especially on gun rights and money-as-speech, that show policy moving to the right; DW Nominate scores, which are an objective measure, clearly show that Republicans have moved to the right without any Democratic movement in any direction. It's easy to cherrypick to show that the country is moving left or right (gay rights is a very easy issue to argue left with), but I don't think there's a clear pattern of movement in any direction (I guess you could argue left socially, but right economically, but that might be my own bias sneaking through).

The Democrats held both chambers of Congress from 1981-1995: are you going to argue the country wasn't moving to the right during that time?

Democrats did not control the Senate from 1981-1987, but regardless, at that time, the Democratic party had a large conservative faction, and right-wing Republican Presidents were able to push their agendas through. Congress has been, partially since 2010 and totally since 2014, controlled by the opposition to the Obama Presidency, in a way that Reagan never experienced.

Well without Republican Votes Obama would not have gotten to negotiate TPP. Obama also got Republicans to budge on spending on this last "Omnibus Spending Bill". Well Obama is not as popular as Reagan was back in his heyday. Obama's approval ratings have been in the 40's for most of his presidency. Reagan's approval ratings were mostly over 50% his whole time in office except for 1981-1982 because of the economy and high inflation. Reagan's approval ratings did slip below 50% because of Iran Contra in 1986 as well. I do believe Reagan(1981-1982) and Obama(2009) are similar in that they came into office with a bad economy.

(Fixed because the lame duck period extends into the beginning of the year after the election.  - TF)

[hopper]

Dems are gonna win presidency and control Senate, in 2016; &1994, 2010 & 2014 was coming anyways, due 1994 Brady bill.

But, 2020 is coming for the GOP, and it is doubtful the GOP will pick up the type of Senate seats, in 2018, that will give them long term control. In a neutral yr, ND & IN are gone while Dems pick up NV. Keeping Dems in charge.

America is moving left and immigration reform & minimum wage increase adjusted to inflation will eventually have its day
-

You better hope that America doesn't have a high inflation crisis than if you want a minimum wage increase adjusted to inflation. I don't think this proposal will happen even Dems know that minimum wage adjusted to inflation would be harmful to the economy if high inflation happened.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Anyways, there will be Dems elected to Govs in IL, NM, FL, NV, ME, & MI. Some of these states will enact new minimum wage and not wait for Congress. Especially IL, NV & NM where Dems hold state legislatures as well. By, 2022, immigration reform will have happened too.