Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "We don't have a left party in the U.S."

[Cabbage]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Except it isn't even true. We haven't shifted much, and certainly not uniformly to the right. Gay marriage is a thing now, and it's basically accepted by the public. That's really recent move to the left. Even Obama was opposed to it at the beginning of his first term. And you won't find any Democratic presidential candidates talking about illegal immigration the way Bill Clinton talked about it.

I was actually talking about the platform of the Republican party. Yes I am thankful they don't always get what they want; that doesn't change the fact that the GOP Platform has shifted dangerously far to the Right.

[Donal]

Originally Posted by theprestige

She's trying to have it both ways: All the advantages of being part of the Democratic establishment, plus all the advantages of undermining that establishment. This doesn't sound like a stable strategy for sustaining the advantages of the Democratic establishment.

The establishment has openly worked against her and other progressives. It wants it both ways as well. All the advantages of having progressives come out and vote for establishment candidates without ever having to appeal to progressives.

[Jerrymander]

Isn't the UK more right wing since it has a monarchy?

Steve Bannon is considered further right then the mainstream Repulicans and yet...

Quote:

Bannon is in favor of raising federal income taxes to 44% for those earning incomes over $5 million a year as a way to pay for middle class tax cuts.[215] He also supports significantly increasing spending on infrastructure, describing himself as "the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan".[216] Bannon is opposed to government bailouts, describing them as "socialism for the very wealthy".[217] He generally believes in reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy, declaring at the Conservative Political Action Conference he favored the "deconstruction of the administrative state".[218] However, he does support increased regulation of Internet companies like Facebook and Google, which he regards as akin to utilities in the modern age.[219] He opposed the merger between Time-Warner and AT&T on antitrust grounds.[220] He was a strong opponent of the Paris climate agreement within the administration, successfully persuading the President to withdraw from it.[221]

[pgwenthold]

I have to say, all this Trumpet concern about AOC and her role in the democratic party is very touching.

[xjx388]

I'm not even sure why "left" or "right" matters. I'd bet you that most of us aren't all on one side of all the issues. She (and all politicians) should be more concerned with formulating actual policies and getting them passed, if she can. Convince more Americans to agree with what she wants and the shifts will happen all by themselves.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Donal

The establishment has openly worked against her and other progressives. It wants it both ways as well. All the advantages of having progressives come out and vote for establishment candidates without ever having to appeal to progressives.

That's a valid point. I'm not saying she's in the wrong, here.

However, the establishment does have a realistic value proposition: "Join our team, support our cause, benefit from our established position, and we'll see that you're taken care of."

If you're a progressive that likes that proposal, you can accept the proposition, be a team player, and enjoy the benefits of the establishment. And if you don't like that proposal, you don't have to join.

It's different on the other side of that page. When a progressive doesn't like the proposal, but joins up anyway with the intention of exploiting the benefits while undermining the establishment that provides them... It's hard for me not to conclude that she's in the wrong.

[Cabbage]

Originally Posted by xjx388

I'm not even sure why "left" or "right" matters. I'd bet you that most of us aren't all on one side of all the issues. She (and all politicians) should be more concerned with formulating actual policies and getting them passed, if she can. Convince more Americans to agree with what she wants and the shifts will happen all by themselves.

Not when there's a mentally ill president in the White House.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by xjx388

I'm not even sure why "left" or "right" matters. I'd bet you that most of us aren't all on one side of all the issues. She (and all politicians) should be more concerned with formulating actual policies and getting them passed, if she can. Convince more Americans to agree with what she wants and the shifts will happen all by themselves.

The majority of people do support policies she wants passed.

I suspect the biggest reasons that isn't getting done is because we have an obstructive Senate and because she's the one fighting for it.

If Trump came out tomorrow with AOC's proposals I suspect the Trumpists and a majority of Republicans would embrace it pretty quickly.

[Mumbles]

Originally Posted by xjx388

I'm not even sure why "left" or "right" matters. I'd bet you that most of us aren't all on one side of all the issues. She (and all politicians) should be more concerned with formulating actual policies and getting them passed, if she can. Convince more Americans to agree with what she wants and the shifts will happen all by themselves.

As a junior member of the House, her power to do such is very limited - but she has done so along with the rest of the house dems. Sadly, Mitch McConnell is uninterested in passing legislation, preferring to pack the courts.

As for convincing "more" Americans to agree with her, polls show that a strong majority already agree with much of what she wants, so why would she need to do any such thing?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by plague311

That article is mostly just arguing about the definition of right-wing.

If you want to claim a change in ideology, you need to define that ideology. "Right wing" doesn't have a very consistent definition, and as that article points out, using different definitions over time will screw up your attempts to track changes.

Quote:

Claiming that since the current GOP isn't minimizing government then they can't actually be considered right-wing.

You missed the point, which isn't that they're not right wing, but that they aren't becoming more right wing, at least not on that metric.

Quote:

It just hit me as strange that you wrote a paragraph saying that the evidence you'd want doesn't exist, then link me to an article quibbling about the true definition of right-wing.

There's nothing strange about it. The article is essentially pointing out why it's easy to mis-measure what you think you're measuring. That speaks rather directly to the problem of getting good data to track this.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Cabbage

I was actually talking about the platform of the Republican party. Yes I am thankful they don't always get what they want; that doesn't change the fact that the GOP Platform has shifted dangerously far to the Right.

Have you actually tracked changes over time? Have you looked into how party platform actually affects governance? Have you done the same with the Democrats to see how they've shifted?

I don't think you've actually got any good data to back up your claim.

[Cabbage]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Have you actually tracked changes over time? Have you looked into how party platform actually affects governance? Have you done the same with the Democrats to see how they've shifted?

I don't think you've actually got any good data to back up your claim.

I've been witnessing first hand the rise of the right wing authoritarian streak which has led to President Trump, along with the destruction of the Voting Rights Act and then the ensuing campaign to disenfranchise minorities and their voting rights. Removing regulations that protect the environment so businesses can make profits with insufficient consideration of their impact on the environment. Indeed, I have the GOP go from taking Climate Change as a serious issue to denying the problem even exists to begin with.

All of this is merely off the top of my head. There is much, much more. And take this for example:

Quote:

But by most other measures, the GOP is far more conservative than it used to be. The General Social Survey, for example, shows self-identified Republicans moving far more toward the “extremely conservative” end of its scale (as opposed to “extremely liberal”) over the past several decades.

Political scientists, using DW-Nominate scores,2 have concluded that the Republicans now in Congress are much further to the right of congressional Republicans in the 1970s and 1980s. And even anecdotally, figures like former House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and the late Arizona Sen. John McCain — considered solid conservatives in the George H.W. Bush era — found themselves cast as insufficiently right-wing by the party’s base in recent years.

In Bush’s era, Fox News did not exist. Deeply conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and their allies had not created a huge network of right-wing groups that constitute basically an alternative political party. There was no tea party or House Freedom Caucus. Trump may be personally more conservative than Bush, but even if he weren’t, the forces that push a Republican president to the ideological right are stronger now than they were in the 1980s.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...w-bush-ran-it/


No, I think I've got some pretty damned good data to back it up. What I lack is the simple ability to snap you out of your state of denial.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Cabbage

I've been witnessing first hand

So subjective anecdotes, then.

Quote:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...w-bush-ran-it/


No, I think I've got some pretty damned good data to back it up. What I lack is the simple ability to snap you out of your state of denial.

I'm a step ahead of you. My previous link pointed out why DW-Nominate scores don't actually measure ideology, but only party cohesion.

[Brainster]

Kevin Drum had a pretty good article on this the other day, pointing out that because the number of liberals is smaller than the number of conservatives, the former have to compromise in order get enough of the centrists and even some center-right people to vote for them. As the conservatives start with more votes, they only need to get slightly conservative centrists to reach 51%.

Quote:

At this point, a bunch of people in comments are going to start going on about how ideological self-ID has changed over the years and centrists are more liberal than they used to be and all the polls say liberal views command a majority, blah blah blah. Just stop it. All you’re doing is kidding yourself. The hard truth is that America is not an especially liberal country, and that means it’s tough being the liberal party. You have to go slow and you have to compromise.

As for AOC's brain power, let's remember that she thought that since New York was not giving Amazon lots of tax breaks to come to her district, that the tax breaks should be given to her constituents. Seriously.

Quote:

"It's fair to ask why we don't invest the capital for public use, + why we don't give working people a tax break," Ocasio-Cortez said in a series of tweets on Tuesday night.

[Travis]

Originally Posted by The Don

Not if their policies are anything to go by.

Such as?


What are these right wing policies the Democrats are passing?

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by xjx388

I'm not even sure why "left" or "right" matters. I'd bet you that most of us aren't all on one side of all the issues. She (and all politicians) should be more concerned with formulating actual policies and getting them passed, if she can. Convince more Americans to agree with what she wants and the shifts will happen all by themselves.

That is what the hard line ideologues on both the left and right don't get...or don't want to get.
But than I have noted centrists are genrally regarded with contempt by many in this forum.
No wonder this forum is shrinking rapidly. It is becoming a echo chamber.

[dudalb]

If AOC wants to start a left wing political party, there is nothing stopping her...
Her real problem is most Democrats are not as far to the left as she is, and that seems to rankle her.
I guess her dream is to take over the Dems and push it to the left. She shouldnot be surrised if she also pushes a good deal of the current membership out.
I can easily see ex Dems and ex Gopers getting together to form a third party.

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by lionking

A pretty obvious statement by AOC. What is called left in the US would be right of centre in most parts of the world.

Which is meaningless in terms of US Politics......soemthign the people who keep repeating this as naseum don't get.

[Baylor]

Originally Posted by The Don

Nope, I know plenty about it.

You have to provide some evidence to support that ridiculous assertion.

[Baylor]

Originally Posted by The Don

Oh, you're going to have to provide some sort of evidence to support that ridiculous assertion.

Now you're admitting you don't know anything about US politics. THANKS.

[Craig4]

Nothing succeeds like success. If America wanted a left wing Democratic Party, we'd have one. Attempts to take the Democratic Party to the left have failed in the primaries, cost the Dems the House or the Dems have been reminded that the US doesn't want a progressive party in the general election.

[Baylor]

Originally Posted by ahhell

Assuming you define "left" immigration policy as being more open to immigration, its clearly true that the US as more leftists immigration policy than most European countries.

With the exception of Germany, Ireland, and various City-States, the US as significantly larger percentage of its population that is foreign born than most european countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ant_population

That US estimate is an underestimate as there are millions living in the US illegally that are unaccounted for:

Study Finds Twice as Many Undocumented Immigrants as Previous Estimates

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[Cabbage]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

So subjective anecdotes, then.

Ah, your usual use of dismissive language to avoid even addressing the subject. Gutting the Voting Rights Act is not a subjective anecdote, sir. Repealing environmental regulations in the face of climate change is not a subjective anecdote. Conspiring to protect a president abusing the office is not a subjective anecdote.

A constant state of denial of everything I say, on the other hand....


LOL!

[Baylor]

Originally Posted by Craig4

Nothing succeeds like success. If America wanted a left wing Democratic Party, we'd have one. Attempts to take the Democratic Party to the left have failed in the primaries, cost the Dems the House or the Dems have been reminded that the US doesn't want a progressive party in the general election.

Why is that? Because the US citizens don't want to share resources with foreigners and other people who aren't like them. And it's like that throughout the world.

In diverse, multi racial multi ethnic Brazil, a "fascist" was elected president. In diverse, multi-ethinc India, far right politicians swept recent elections. In diverse Israel, right wing "strong man" rules the country and it has a giant wall to keep people out. Even in the UK, after a small increase of non-white immigration, the "right wing" [sic] party had its biggest electoral victory in nearly a century. This is the cost of diversity. I'm absolutely sick of this place comparing US to small lily white homogenous ethno-states.

[Cabbage]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

My previous link subjective anecdote pointed out why DW-Nominate scores don't actually measure ideology, but only party cohesion.

FTFY

LMFAO!!

[Baylor]

Originally Posted by lionking

Cherry picking. 14% foreign born is nothing to write home about. I don’t think immigration policy is a decent measure of left-wingness anyway.

Cherry picking. 14% is a huge underestimate (see my post upthread). "measure of left-wingness" isn't a metric in any way. Australia has an all white (supremacists) government and that is unheard of in USA! These are things that can be measured, not random people on the internet claiming what is and isn't "measure of left-wingness."

[xjx388]

Originally Posted by Venom

The majority of people do support policies she wants passed.

I suspect the biggest reasons that isn't getting done is because we have an obstructive Senate and because she's the one fighting for it.

If Trump came out tomorrow with AOC's proposals I suspect the Trumpists and a majority of Republicans would embrace it pretty quickly.

If the majority of people want her policies, then why aren’t there more people like her in the House and Senate? Bernie should have swept the primaries in 2016.

I don’t think, in actual practice, that it’s true.

[Delphic Oracle]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Kevin Drum had a pretty good article on this the other day, pointing out that because the number of liberals is smaller than the number of conservatives, the former have to compromise in order get enough of the centrists and even some center-right people to vote for them. As the conservatives start with more votes, they only need to get slightly conservative centrists to reach 51%.



As for AOC's brain power, let's remember that she thought that since New York was not giving Amazon lots of tax breaks to come to her district, that the tax breaks should be given to her constituents. Seriously.

What's the problem with that?

The calculation of giving a developer a tax break is that they will generate economic activity and thus tax revenue to make up for it. Well that and generous election campaign contributions for those voting in favor.

That same logic works when considering "public use" in the same fashion. Fix infrastructure now that will be more costly to repair later after it breaks. Fix up schools and hire more teachers so your workforce is more educated and earning higher wages later. That same logic is at play for "tax breaks" for fixing your roof and shoring up your foundation. A little work now means housing stock that retains its assessed value (and thus tax liability). That means not having to redevelop the whole blighted neighborhood later.

Oh wait, I think I'm starting to see a connection here and why "civic leaders" frown on the idea of giving normal constituents the same offer they make to developers who can write lots of checks.

[Delphic Oracle]

Originally Posted by xjx388

If the majority of people want her policies, then why aren’t there more people like her in the House and Senate? Bernie should have swept the primaries in 2016.

I don’t think, in actual practice, that it’s true.

Because people don't vote based on a rational analysis of who is most aligned with them in technocratic policy.

[Mumbles]

Originally Posted by dudalb

If AOC wants to start a left wing political party, there is nothing stopping her...
Her real problem is most Democrats are not as far to the left as she is, and that seems to rankle her.

First, she'd be an idiot to attempt to start her own party, given the natural 2-party state of equilibrium caused by the US system.

Second, when discussing the legacy of MLK Jr., on MLK Jr Day (which is exactly what this talk was about, and the day it was on), it's perfectly fair to point out that as much as the dems view themselves as carrying on his legacy, they really aren't. That the modern GOP would likely consider him a terrorist leader, as they do with BLM, doesn't change this.

Quote:

I guess her dream is to take over the Dems and push it to the left. She shouldnot be surrised if she also pushes a good deal of the current membership out.

Very questionable. If anything, she seems to be replacing politicians that are responsive to the wealthy, with those responsive to the average voter. Her example of Medicare for All points strongly in this direction - it's highly popular among voters, but gets nowhere even in the dem-controlled House.

Quote:

I can easily see ex Dems and ex Gopers getting together to form a third party.

Again, very unlikely. The last major party to emerge was the GOP, in the wake of the 1854 collapse of the Whigs.

[Mumbles]

Originally Posted by xjx388

If the majority of people want her policies, then why aren’t there more people like her in the House and Senate? Bernie should have swept the primaries in 2016.

I don’t think, in actual practice, that it’s true.

Because the choice most people see is between the incumbent of one part, and the challenger from the other - primaries rarely draw much participation and are often uncontested. Combine this with issues of seniority in DC, and who you vote fore, even in a primary, may make no difference at all as far a law goes.

[BobTheCoward]

Originally Posted by Mumbles

Because the choice most people see is between the incumbent of one part, and the challenger from the other - primaries rarely draw much participation and are often uncontested. Combine this with issues of seniority in DC, and who you vote fore, even in a primary, may make no difference at all as far a law goes.

I think it was vox that recently talked about even the wealthy donors are left of the median democrat.

[Roger Ramjets]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is clearly wrong. We do have a left party in the U.S. - its called the Democratic Party, and it's full of communists socialists who want to empty out your bank account and give it away to gays and moochers. In fact the Democratic Party is so far left that it's even to the left of Russia!

And the Republican Party is not right wing, it's centrist. I know that because it's where I am on the political spectrum.

Any statistics, survey or political analysis that disagree is fake news made up by leftists, and doesn't mean what you think it does.

Overall the political climate in the US has moved left, not right, in recent years. As proof I give you - gay marriage:-

Quote:

Gallup polls over the past decade have mostly shown small, incremental increases in support for gay marriage each year. Majorities of Americans have continuously supported same-sex couples' right to marry since late 2012, not long after President Barack Obama came out in support of it -- making him the first president to do so...

Twenty years ago, a majority of just one group -- 18- to 29-year-olds (52%) -- supported legalizing gay marriage. By 2009, majorities of both young adults (59%) and Democrats (55%) supported legal same-sex marriage.

Today, majorities of most groups support gay marriage -- with the exception of adults aged 65 and older (47%) and Republicans (44%).

That's right. Today even 44% of republicans are apparently OK with 'it' after Barack Obama came out! This is all the proof we need to know that America has taken a hard-left turn since 2009.

Liberals will try to convince you that this is only one issue of many, and that the country has moved right on most others. But this is just their partisanship talking. After all we have given them - gay marriage, Obamacare (hopefully not for long) etc., they still want more. And when we try to curb their excesses they accuse us of extremism!

/conservative_apologist

[Venom]

Originally Posted by xjx388

If the majority of people want her policies, then why aren’t there more people like her in the House and Senate? Bernie should have swept the primaries in 2016.

I don’t think, in actual practice, that it’s true.

Bernie got a fraction of the mainstream media coverage Clinton got, let alone Trump. Name recognition matters. It's one of the biggest influences of the average ignorant voter's decision making.

[Craig4]

Originally Posted by Baylor

Why is that? Because the US citizens don't want to share resources with foreigners and other people who aren't like them. And it's like that throughout the world.

In diverse, multi racial multi ethnic Brazil, a "fascist" was elected president. In diverse, multi-ethinc India, far right politicians swept recent elections. In diverse Israel, right wing "strong man" rules the country and it has a giant wall to keep people out. Even in the UK, after a small increase of non-white immigration, the "right wing" [sic] party had its biggest electoral victory in nearly a century. This is the cost of diversity. I'm absolutely sick of this place comparing US to small lily white homogenous ethno-states.

No, I think it's because most Americans want to keep their health plans.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by cullennz

AOC doesn't sound the brightest bulb on the xmas tree

If that is what you glean from this, then you don't know much about US politics... oh wait, you already admitted that previously

Never mind

She is absolutely right...if the Democratic Party were somehow transplanted into NZ, they would be further right than the Nats. GOP would be considered ultra-conservative.

If you transplanted the NZ Labour party into the USA, they would be seen as ultra left-wing loony-toons.

AOC herself in NZ would fit in around the conservative edges of the Labour Party.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by Travis

Such as?


What are these right wing policies the Democrats are passing?

It's the left wing policies that the Democrats are failing to promote.

Where is the Democrat single-payer UHC policy ? Hopelessly mired.

Where are the Democratic proposals for a massive extension of the welfare state to provide for the millions of Americans living in poverty ? Rejected, because the Democrats want to appear "fiscally responsible".

Where are the Democratic proposals to address income and wealth inequality by raising taxes significantly on rich individuals and profitable companies ? Rejected for fear of scaring the horses.

That's not to say that individual Democratic Party supporters, members or representatives don't support these policies, just that they never seem to become the official party policy.

One of the key differences between (the now much maligned) Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama is that Tony Blair made all the correct centre-right noises about keeping public spending and taxes down but once elected implemented a surprisingly wide range of leftish policies like addressing the chronic under-funding of the NHS, implementing working tax credits to move hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, properly funding schools and so on. Bill and Barack made the same noises but then when they were in office actually implemented those centre right policies, keeping government spending low, extending tax cuts and so forth.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by xjx388

If the majority of people want her policies, then why aren’t there more people like her in the House and Senate? Bernie should have swept the primaries in 2016.

I don’t think, in actual practice, that it’s true.

It's one of those puzzling conundrums, it's the same here in the UK.

When questioned about individual left-wing policies then people tend to be in support of them, and against right wing policies. They don't however support the lefter leaning party on the grounds that they're dangerous communists, despite supporting their position on the majority of policies.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by The Don

Where is the Democrat single-payer UHC policy ? Hopelessly mired..

I don't get why America finds it so hard to have a working UHC. They seem to find ways to overcomplicate everything to the point that nothing works properly

When it comes to UHC, simple is best. Every man, woman and child should be entitled to Government underwritten health insurance, paid for via a fixed percentage of each taxpayer's tax liability which will cover them from the cradle to the grave. Each person has a fixed dollar amount allocated to them as the premium for their insurance. Should someone wish to opt out of the government insurance plan and go private, they are free to do so, and if they do, that allocated premium is paid to the provider of their choice, and the person is responsible to pay the provider the balance of their premium.

Simple to understand
Simple to administer


Similar (bit not identical) systems work in Norway, Sweden, Australia and Switzerland. New Zealand has a similar system that is limited to healthcare for accidents and injuries sustained at work or at home.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Jerrymander

Isn't the UK more right wing since it has a monarchy?

A powerless monarchy.

But why would that matter?