A Neat Little Comparison Chart

[Stevicus]

The 60's were the first wave. Yes, they moved right since then, but starting with the people who suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome, the push has been to become more lefty.

The Pew Research Center data bears that out.

The Democrats are further to the far left today than the Republicans are to the far right, period...

I guess it really depends on how you define "left" and "right."

In my view, actual election results would be a stronger indicator than whatever opinion polls are published by Pew. All we need to do is look at who each party selected as their candidates in the last election. The Democrats clearly rejected the more left-wing Sanders in favor of a pro-corporate, pro-Wall Street capitalist and globalist. That, just by itself, proves that they can't be all that far-left.

And the Republicans...well, look who they picked.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

I guess it really depends on how you define "left" and "right."

In my view, actual election results would be a stronger indicator than whatever opinion polls are published by Pew. All we need to do is look at who each party selected as their candidates in the last election. The Democrats clearly rejected the more left-wing Sanders in favor of a pro-corporate, pro-Wall Street capitalist and globalist. That, just by itself, proves that they can't be all that far-left.

And the Republicans...well, look who they picked.

Well, first of all, Democrats clearly were voting for Sanders in droves, but what happened is the scam of the Democrat party which has this insane system of super delegates whose purpose is to make sure that the electorate's wishes are opposed.

What we know from the emails from the DNC is that the DNC did all it could to marginalize Bernie's candidacy and ensure Hillary got the nod.

The Democratic electorate was clearly wanting a candidate other than Hillary, but due to the DNC machine that was never going to happen.

What happened with the Republicans is a whole other story. With 17 people running, it was always a risk that Trump would win the nod, and I lament the fact that more Republicans didn't get out of the way sooner and let the real people who had a chance at winning soak up the rest of the primary votes.

My greatest wish was that Romney had won in 2012. I wish he'd have tried to run again in 2016, but alas it wasn't to be.

 

[tytlyf]

Well, it's a recent thing for southern Democrats, but just prior to the 20's there is what is known as the Progressive era.

No, the south was more conservative a hundred years ago. And the south is still red to this day. It's just the conservatives who used to vote DemoKKKrat have now moved to the republican party.

Democrats are more to the far left than the right is to the far right, that's just a fact, as Pew pointed out.

That's not a fact, you haven't pointed that out yet. Just picking some random chart doesn't conclude that.

Why don't you find a chart that focuses solely on what you keep purporting?

 

[metis]

No, the south was more conservative a hundred years ago. And the south is still red to this day. It's just the conservatives who used to vote DemoKKKrat have now moved to the republican party.

Yep, and Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, and probably even Abraham Lincoln, would not be much welcome in today's Party of Trump.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

No, the south was more conservative a hundred years ago. And the south is still red to this day. It's just the conservatives who used to vote DemoKKKrat have now moved to the republican party.

That's not a fact, you haven't pointed that out yet. Just picking some random chart doesn't conclude that.

Why don't you find a chart that focuses solely on what you keep purporting?

Have you googled the phrase, "Is the Democrat party moving left"? Have you done any research to try and disprove your own beliefs at all?

It returns tons of articles and commentary saying that Democrats are further to the left than Republicans are to the right... From people left, right, and center.

 

[Underhill]

The push towards the left began in earnest in the 2000's with the people suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. Trump has accelerated the push left, yes, but there is no doubt that Democrats are more to the left than Republicans are to the right.

I would say that depends on where you are standing. Yes, there was a push to the left under Bush, but there was also a hard push to the right under Obama. I live in a predominantly right wing part of the country and I can tell you that this area is more bat guano right wing than ever.

We saw a split grow in the country under Obama because he was black. Now we are seeing that split grow exponentially under Trump.

I think on social issues our country has moved to the left and hopefully will continue to do so. But when it comes to economics, the military and guns, our country is more right wing than ever. I think there are those that want to change that, but I see no evidence of an actual shift.

Since 2000, we have more republican governors, congressmen and a republican president. It is hard to see how we have moved to the left overall in light of those realities.

 

[Underhill]

Have you googled the phrase, "Is the Democrat party moving left"? Have you done any research to try and disprove your own beliefs at all?

It returns tons of articles and commentary saying that Democrats are further to the left than Republicans are to the right... From people left, right, and center.

Have you tried doing the same for republicans? When I search, "Is the republican party moving right?" I get....

Yes, the Republican Party has become pathological. But why?

No, America Isn’t Moving Left

Framing and party competition: How Democrats enabled the GOP’s move to the uncompromising right

There was only one story that agrees with you, sort of.

Trump Is Radicalizing the Democratic Party

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

I would say that depends on where you are standing. Yes, there was a push to the left under Bush, but there was also a hard push to the right under Obama. I live in a predominantly right wing part of the country and I can tell you that this area is more bat guano right wing than ever.

We saw a split grow in the country under Obama because he was black. Now we are seeing that split grow exponentially under Trump.

I think on social issues our country has moved to the left and hopefully will continue to do so. But when it comes to economics, the military and guns, our country is more right wing than ever. I think there are those that want to change that, but I see no evidence of an actual shift.

Since 2000, we have more republican governors, congressmen and a republican president. It is hard to see how we have moved to the left overall in light of those realities.

"We saw a split grow in the country under Obama because he was black"

That is nonsense for the most part. It is true that the KKK style racists were mad that a black man was in the highest position in the land, I don't doubt this one bit, but to project this truth onto all Republicans is just hyperbole.

I would say that only about 1-2% of Republicans were angry that a black man was POTUS.

Most of the Republicans opposition to Obama was due to his political past and the ideologues he associated with, ie people like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Saying it was because he was black is hyperbolic nonsense.

The right's move to the right during his presidency was brought on by that rather than because he was black.

 

[Stevicus]

Well, first of all, Democrats clearly were voting for Sanders in droves, but what happened is the scam of the Democrat party which has this insane system of super delegates whose purpose is to make sure that the electorate's wishes are opposed.

What we know from the emails from the DNC is that the DNC did all it could to marginalize Bernie's candidacy and ensure Hillary got the nod.

The Democratic electorate was clearly wanting a candidate other than Hillary, but due to the DNC machine that was never going to happen.

This may be true, although if the Democrat electorate wanted to pick someone else, they would have.

But yeah, based on the way the DNC treated Bernie, it's hard to sympathize with the Democrats' post-election cries of foul.

We'll see what direction they take in the next election. I think they'd be better off by trying to regain their traditional working-class base, which might mean moving further to the left.

What happened with the Republicans is a whole other story. With 17 people running, it was always a risk that Trump would win the nod, and I lament the fact that more Republicans didn't get out of the way sooner and let the real people who had a chance at winning soak up the rest of the primary votes.

My greatest wish was that Romney had won in 2012. I wish he'd have tried to run again in 2016, but alas it wasn't to be.

What I've noticed about a lot of Republicans is that too many of them are still pining for their glory days back when Reagan was still president. But they've been struggling to find someone with that level of charisma and popularity. A lot of their candidates come across as bland and colorless, while others have a kind of "used car salesman" sheen about them which can make some voters wary.

 

[Underhill]

"We saw a split grow in the country under Obama because he was black"

That is nonsense for the most part. It is true that the KKK style racists were mad that a black man was in the highest position in the land, I don't doubt this one bit, but to project this truth onto all Republicans is just hyperbole.

I would say that only about 1-2% of Republicans were angry that a black man was POTUS.

I agree in part. 1-2% of Republicans were publicly angry that a black man was POTUS. But I've never seen even close to that level of vitriol aimed at a man whose single largest piece of legislation was an attempt at health care reform. Clinton, with all his peccadilloes, didn't even come close. Bush, who started a war under false pretense, didn't raise the heckles of Americans to the same extent as Obama. Even now, I hear people claiming Trump is a vast improvement, as though Obama was Hitler reincarnated.

It makes no sense at the policy level and the guy was generally a good public speaker and seemed likable enough. So it is awfully hard to come to any reasonable conclusion beyond his skin color had an impact.

Most of the Republicans opposition to Obama was due to his political past and the ideologues he associated with, ie people like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Nonsense. I never once heard that mentioned in my hundreds of discussions with people who hated Obama. If it was a factor, it's a pretty stupid one. Obama, at best, had contact with Ayers very briefly in college. There were extensive investigations by several outlets and all of them came to the same conclusion. They were not close by any stretch...

Saying it was because he was black is hyperbolic nonsense.

The right's move to the right during his presidency was brought on by that rather than because he was black.

It was brought on by fear. Fear perpetrated by his color and by nonsense about guns. Oh and Benghazi. The single largest manufactured scandal I've seen in the last 30 years. It was certainly not because of his policies which were about as middle of the road as they come. His health care bill was almost word for word a republican bill from the 90's.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

This may be true, although if the Democrat electorate wanted to pick someone else, they would have.

But yeah, based on the way the DNC treated Bernie, it's hard to sympathize with the Democrats' post-election cries of foul.

We'll see what direction they take in the next election. I think they'd be better off by trying to regain their traditional working-class base, which might mean moving further to the left.



What I've noticed about a lot of Republicans is that too many of them are still pining for their glory days back when Reagan was still president. But they've been struggling to find someone with that level of charisma and popularity. A lot of their candidates come across as bland and colorless, while others have a kind of "used car salesman" sheen about them which can make some voters wary.

It's complicated, the Democrat system of delegates works like this. Super delegates account for something like 15-20% of the delegates that get sent to the convention (they change each election cycle depending on how the DNC chooses to operate it). A superdelegate is an unpledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention who is seated automatically and chooses for themselves for whom they vote. So the remainder of the delegates are supposed to vote the way in which their districts voted, but some states allow them to vote how they prefer rather than as their district votes.

Hillary ended up winning something like 630 super delegates to Bernie's 47...

How Democratic Superdelegates Decided the 2016 Election | HuffPost

From the article...
"Focusing in and looking at a state like New Hampshire, we can clearly see how superdelegates have effected this race. At the polls Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire’s pledged delegates by a landslide 22 percent. Bernie Sanders received 60.4 percent of the poll vote, just about 150,000 votes. Clinton received 38 percent of the poll vote, tallying just about 95,000 votes. Yet, all six Democratic New Hampshire superdelegates gave their support to Hillary Clinton, effectively erasing Sanders win, leading both candidates to leave the state with the same 15 delegates. The six votes of support by Governor Maggie Hassan, Representative Ann Kuster, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, and DNC members Bill Shaheen, Kathy Sullivan, and Joanne Dowdell, effectively erased the impact of 55,000 Democratic voters on this election."

New Hampshire isn't the only place this system caused chaos...

If Democrats want to call their primary and caucus process fair, they really need to get rid of that system. It's an obvious ploy to disenfranchise Democratic voters, and achieves it's goal effectively.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

I agree in part. 1-2% of Republicans were publicly angry that a black man was POTUS. But I've never seen even close to that level of vitriol aimed at a man whose single largest piece of legislation was an attempt at health care reform. Clinton, with all his peccadilloes, didn't even come close. Bush, who started a war under false pretense, didn't raise the heckles of Americans to the same extent as Obama. Even now, I hear people claiming Trump is a vast improvement, as though Obama was Hitler reincarnated.

It makes no sense at the policy level and the guy was generally a good public speaker and seemed likable enough. So it is awfully hard to come to any reasonable conclusion beyond his skin color had an impact.



Nonsense. I never once heard that mentioned in my hundreds of discussions with people who hated Obama. If it was a factor, it's a pretty stupid one. Obama, at best, had contact with Ayers very briefly in college. There were extensive investigations by several outlets and all of them came to the same conclusion. They were not close by any stretch...



It was brought on by fear. Fear perpetrated by his color and by nonsense about guns. Oh and Benghazi. The single largest manufactured scandal I've seen in the last 30 years. It was certainly not because of his policies which were about as middle of the road as they come. His health care bill was almost word for word a republican bill from the 90's.

We're just going to have to disagree on the point about his being black. I can say for myself and those in my life who vote Republican that his skin color had nothing whatsoever to do with our opposition to him and his policies.

His voting record, or lack thereof, since he mostly just voted "present" for most votes while he was a politician in Illinois, his political views, and the circumstantial evidence of his relations with Ayers and Dohrn was enough for the Hannity's of the world to pin the bad juju on him and poison opinion against him in the hearts of most Republicans. The facts though are that they certainly were neighbors. Ayers did raise money for Obama and invite them to a political fundraiser as his home, and they did work together at the Annenberg Foundation.

No, the ACA is not a word for word replica of the 90's Republican bill, not by a long shot. It is true that there were a few similarities that existed between the two, but that doesn't matter really. The Republican bill that was put forth in the 90's was a response to what Hillary and Bill tried to push through, and it hardly had full Republican support.

 

[metis]

A friend of mine who I grew up with here in Michigan has lived down in central Tennessee for around 40 years now, and when I told him about a guy who lives in Tennessee who told me on a message board (not RF) that racism is all but dead there, my friend almost gave himself a hernia as he was laughing so hard.
And yes, we still got plenty of racism here in Michigan, including quite a few relatives and friends of mine.

It's not as overtly conspicuous as it used to be, so there is at least some improvement in that area. Plus it's less fashionable to make public racist statements, but still it often shows up in more subtle ways. Remember, in the case of Trump, he went around seven years claiming that Obama wasn't a U.S. citizen, including even after Obama's birth certificate was made public, and a survey of Republicans even in Obama's 2nd term had it that a majority of them believed as such.

1-2% racists? I don't think so.

 

[tytlyf]

Have you googled the phrase, "Is the Democrat party moving left"? Have you done any research to try and disprove your own beliefs at all?

It returns tons of articles and commentary saying that Democrats are further to the left than Republicans are to the right... From people left, right, and center.

I never disagreed the party was moving left. I disagree with your conclusion from your 10 question chart that it's proof there's more radical left wingers than radical right wingers.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

A friend of mine who I grew up with here in Michigan has lived down in central Tennessee for around 40 years now, and when I told him about a guy who lives in Tennessee who told me on a message board (not RF) that racism is all but dead there, my friend almost gave himself a hernia as he was laughing so hard.
And yes, we still got plenty of racism here in Michigan, including quite a few relatives and friends of mine.

It's not as overtly conspicuous as it used to be, so there is at least some improvement in that area. Plus it's less fashionable to make public racist statements, but still it often shows up in more subtle ways. Remember, in the case of Trump, he went around seven years claiming that Obama wasn't a U.S. citizen, including even after Obama's birth certificate was made public, and a survey of Republicans even in Obama's 2nd term had it that a majority of them believed as such.

1-2% racists? I don't think so.

1-2% is a spitball number I give because I don't know how we can really tell how many racists there are in America. Going by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of Ku Klux Klan groups is down in number to about 72 recognized groups nationwide from a high of around 221 in 2010. In the 1970's it was estimated that over 4 million people were members of the KKK, but the latest estimate from the SPLC is that membership in the KKK is about 5-8000 active members nationwide. Obviously, there are more racists than this in America, but millions more of them as you would suggest, and all of them Republicans? I seriously doubt it.

I DO know that racists come in all colors, genders, shapes and sizes, which means that there might actually be millions of them out there in all colors, genders, shapes and sizes...

It is specious to say that the vast majority of Republicans, or even 5% of them are pure out and out racists, nevermind the fact that the Democrats probably have as much racism in their midst as Republicans.

Racist people usually come from uneducated mentalities, come from a lack of worldliness. Both parties have their uneducated masses.

 

[Drizzt Do'Urden]

I never disagreed the party was moving left. I disagree with your conclusion from your 10 question chart that it's proof there's more radical left wingers than radical right wingers.

Rolling my eyes...

 

[ecco]

Sometimes I wonder if a squeaky clean administration means not much was actually accomplished.

Seems in politics, by nature, one needs to get his or her hands dirty in order to get things done.

If you are implying that squeaky clean Obama didn't accomplish much, then you have to explain why trump is spending so much time on reversing Obama era decisions.

DACA
Iran treaty
ACA
Paris Climate Accord

 

[Underhill]

We're just going to have to disagree on the point about his being black. I can say for myself and those in my life who vote Republican that his skin color had nothing whatsoever to do with our opposition to him and his policies.

I doubt most republicans recognize the impact of race on their opinions. Just as with most democrats...

His voting record, or lack thereof, since he mostly just voted "present" for most votes while he was a politician in Illinois, his political views, and the circumstantial evidence of his relations with Ayers and Dohrn was enough for the Hannity's of the world to pin the bad juju on him and poison opinion against him in the hearts of most Republicans. The facts though are that they certainly were neighbors. Ayers did raise money for Obama and invite them to a political fundraiser as his home, and they did work together at the Annenberg Foundation.

If raising money and fundraisers are the mark of "friendship" then everyone in politics is in serious trouble.

No, the ACA is not a word for word replica of the 90's Republican bill, not by a long shot. It is true that there were a few similarities that existed between the two, but that doesn't matter really. The Republican bill that was put forth in the 90's was a response to what Hillary and Bill tried to push through, and it hardly had full Republican support.

It's actually extremely close in all of its tenets. I compared the two when the ACA was first announced. It angered me, because I wanted a single payer system similar to what the Clintons tried to 'push through' (all legislation is 'pushed through' so I'm not sure why that is a thing). Then I had to sit through republicans smearing it for the next 7 years.

 

[metis]

I DO know that racists come in all colors, genders, shapes and sizes, which means that there might actually be millions of them out there in all colors, genders, shapes and sizes...

Yep.

It is specious to say that the vast majority of Republicans, or even 5% of them are pure out and out racists, nevermind the fact that the Democrats probably have as much racism in their midst as Republicans.

I never gave any estimated number because it's virtually impossible to do so. Also, "racism" is more of a variable than some sort of fixed entity. For example, some may have prejudice against a particular group but may never allow it to manifest itself in their behavior.

 

[tytlyf]

Rolling my eyes...

So you truly believe that there are more radical progressives than radical conservatives? Give me an example of what a "radical progressive" is to you.