Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Winning

I don't know anyone who compares our parties with those of Europe. Our nation's birth was entirely overseen by Europeans with a distrust of monarchies. The original thirteen colonies were intended to be nations, much like Europe, each with its own central government.

The rub back in the day was that uniting the states robbed power from the respective governors.

Hence the ongoing battle over "states rights". If not for the need to work together to defeat King George, we would still be a battling bunch of nations with little regard for the common good.

That lack of regard for the common good seems to have been passed down over the centuries.

I’m not sure about this 15% progressive identity. Unlike anything that corporates wanted in the infrastructure bill, reducing prescription drug prices was a very popular piece of legislation proposal in the BBB legislation. Would high favorability of a material benefit be progressive?
What I take issue with identity politics is all the false framing, serving to reenforce right wing illiberalism.
In the issue of race (a minefield, I know) what is the child of identifying mixed race couples? What of the child’s child? So racial identity is fluid at best and more likely serves the interest of those wishing to impose it than any real scientific or factual meaning. It’s subjective at best.
Class on the other hand is based on your material condition. It’s very real.
I’m always suspicious of those that want to reenforce subjective identity labels over universal class labels. My suspicion only grows when they insist on it and avoid class politics. Some one throwing his arm on my shoulder and telling me ‘we’re on the same side’ cuz we’re all progressives without a material argument is a con man.
Clearly, our politics is a class war that’s being won by the upper classes with the use of identity politics. I expect it to continue for as long as it keeps working.

All identity polls aside.

I'm only quoting the polls that said 15% of voters self-identify as Progressive. Maybe it's 17% maybe 22%, maybe 12%...google it if you will.

I used to imagine that among independent voters there was a vast pool of lefty support hiding among the riff-raff. It just isn't so. Or Bernie woulda won.

To me, all politics is class politics. That's why I use silly foreign words like Proletariat and Bourgeoisie which represent the actual classes, that's why I read Theory and search for instances where the working class rises up against the merchant class. An all too rare occurrence these days.

The Great Resignation is perhaps the most interesting thing to happen class-wise in the last century.

With the midterms now a year away, I thought I'd share this with you. The results of the presidential election vs what happened two year after in the midterms.

Presidential Election vs. Midterm 2 years later/Percentages won’t equal 100% due to third party votes

2020 Biden 52% Trump 47% 2022 ????????????????????????????????????

2016 Trump 46% Clinton 48%
2018 Republicans 45% -1, Democrats 54% +6

2012 Obama 51% Romney 47%
2014 Democrats 46% -5, Republicans 51% +4

2008 Obama 53% McCain 46%
2010 Democrats 45% -8, Republicans 52% +6

2004 Bush 51% Kerry 48%
2006 Republicans 44% -7, Democrats 52% +4

2000 Bush 48% Gore 48%
2002 Republicans 50% +2, Democrats 45% -3

1996 Clinton 49% Dole 41% Perot 8%
1998 Democrats 48% -1, Republicans 47% +6

1992 Clinton 43% Bush 37% Perot 19%
1994 Democrats 45% +2, Republicans 52% +15

1988 Bush 53% Dukakis 46%
1990 Republicans 44% -9, Democrats 52% +6

1984 Reagan 59% Mondale 41%
1986 Republicans 44% -15, Democrats 54% +13

1980 Reagan 51% Carter 41% Anderson 7%
1982 Republicans 43% -8, Democrats 55% +14

1976 Carter 50% Ford 48%
1978 Democrats 54% +4, Republicans 45% -3

1972 Nixon 61% McGovern 39%
1974 Republicans 41% -20, Democrats 58% +19

1968 Nixon 44% Humphrey 43% Wallace 13%
1970 Republicans 45% +1, Democrats 54% +11

You can see the huge difference when there was a decent third party candidate, how those votes usually went to the party out of power.

Wait…whut?
I saw major collusion of the DNC with its preferred right wing candidate, HRC, in 2016 as revealed in the Wikileaks Podesta emails to derail a primary challenge from the left.
Ditto, their blowing up of the Iowa caucus in 2020, near lockstep corporate media hysteria generation and a never seen before collapsing of the primary candidate field to a consumer brand loyalty choice to subvert another challenge from the left in 2020. Millions came out for that campaign but let’s face it. Fighting an entrenched right wing political machine with the media and allied spook state is not fighting on a level playing field.

The lengths that the right wing Dem party went to stop a left wing challenge would imply that the threat was real for them and the hysteria they were trying to foment with its rise in the primary was a bit of a giveaway.

Failure to take over a right wing party and losing does not mean there is no left for me. It simply means it’s not able to overcome the asymmetric battle with the entrenched rightwing at present.

You saw crooked politics. Big deal.

I'm thinking it's gonna take a decade for enough Boomers to die off and for the electorate to swing a bit farther left. I don't know who is going to take up the mantle for Bernie...as far as I know, no one is really waiting in the wings.

I always felt something was contrived in the 2016 Democratic Primaries. Based mostly on the super delegate count, Sanders getting just 48 out of the 712. I always chalked that up to Sanders being an independent running in the democratic primaries, he didn't register as a democrat until the primaries began if I remember right. So it could have been party loyalty for a lifelong democrat over a newly registered one. I don't know.

I really didn't pay much attention to it. I started out supporting Jim Webb, when he didn't campaign, I switch to John Kaisch and once he was gone, I moved on to Gary Johnson and voted for him in 2016. More of a protest vote against both Clinton and Trump. But a vote I wanted officially registered as being against both. Me and 9 million others voted the same. 12% of independents and 6% of all Americans.

2016 was Sanders chance. He was only one of three candidates to be viewed more favorably than unfavorably by all Americans. Kasich and Rubio were the others. The two chosen, all Americans viewed Trump 36% favorable/60% unfavorable, Clinton 38% favorable/56% unfavorable. Among independents only, Trump 40% favorable/57% unfavorable, Clinton 27% favorable/70% unfavorable. Independents went for Trump 46-42 with 12% voting third party against both.

Trump and Clinton set the record for the lowest favorable and highest unfavorable of any major party candidates ever. They're the only two to be seen favorably by less than 40% of all American and the only two to have unfavorable's above 50%. Even Goldwater back in 1964 had better marks than Trump and Clinton in 2016. Barry had a 43% favorable and 47% unfavorable. Until 2016, Goldwater was the only major party candidate to have an unfavorable rating higher than his favorable.

Lesseee,

I can’t recall a major party primary being so openly corrupt in my lifetime. Is there a race you can reference that was as corrupt as the last two generals? Politics is a dirty game but Iowa? Scheduling debates during playoff games. Bankrupting the DNC campaign coffers then loaning them money right before you run? Trying to murder a news publisher who broke the stories of the corruption? Far more to bother listing. I’ll put that at the top unless you can recall something more blatant? I’d be interested from a historical perspective.

The Buffalo mayors race was fascinating. An underdog socialist won the Dem primary while the incumbent loser formed a coalition of Dem and Republican financial supporters and voters to win the election as a write-
in in the general. Playing out on a local level much like it did on the national level. The Dem party was exploring the option of abolishing the office of mayor and using a city manager appointment if they lost in the general. No need as the incumbent primary loser won in the general as a write in with the votes breaking heavily along working class vs. professional/wealthy class lines.

Yet another example of Dem establishment jumping in bed with the far right rather than lose to a left challenge. Anyone telling you to vote blue no matter who is a con.

Those primary delegates sure were funny how they got counted.

I’ve seen good arguments for Sanders running as an independant in the 2020, building off his recognition and momentum of 2016. There was plenty of kindling for that kind of fire. It would have allowed many Republican brand voters to switch to a neutral brand option and he could have picked up a growing number of disaffected Dem brand voters. That should have been the move and his time is the argument.

But I don’t think he had it in him. Didn’t have the cut and thrust and fell in line way to quickly after 2020, extracting nothing from brand Dem for his endorsement. If he thought he was going to trade that endorsement for something better down the road as budget chair in the senate, I think he failed and surrounded himself with the wrong people.his real chance was 2020 but maybe it was not really his intention to win. Probably would have caught a bullet if he had, imo.

Spooks have form.

As a swing voter, non-affiliated, basically non-partisan, I can't see anyone calling anyone in the Democratic Party as far right. I suppose if one is far left enough, then perhaps that could be done. Moderate Democrats, yes. As in Manchin, Sinema and how Biden used to be. This from someone who falls into the crack ideological wise in-between the two major parties. Some folks call us centrist, moderates but that not right either as a lot of in-betweeners will support the Republicans on some issues and oppose them on others, same for the Democrats, support them on some, oppose them on others.


Now you do have the establishment of both parties who rely on corporations, wall street firms, lobbyist, special interests, mega individual money donors, etc. to get their money for campaigns and to run their organizations. Most of those above will donate to both parties, but will give the majority of their money to the candidate and party they expect to win. But to be safe, they'll always give the challenger or the underdog money so if the underdog wins, the underdog will still owe them. But there's nothing right or left about this. The idea is to elect people, candidates who owe them.

Now in 2010 Lisa Murkowski lost to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller in the Republican Primary in Alaska. But then Murkowski beat Miller and whoever was her Democratic opponent as a write in candidate to keep her senate seat. So Buffalo isn't alone nor is the Democratic Party.

I had saved a couple of articles that pointed out that Hillary Clinton was decided on as the Democrats 2016 nominee back before the 2012 election in a secret meeting between Obama, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. It's bed time per the wife, so I'll have to look up those articles later.