Zen’s fascists will control you
One hundred percent natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face
Close your eyes, can’t happen here
Big bro on white horse is near
The hippies won’t come back, you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay
For one thing, the Netherlands has nearly the lowest wealth inequality in the world, yet it is a democracy.
He ran as someone who would bring together Blue America and Red America in the spirit of bipartisanship.
From the beginning, he intentionally reached out to Republicans.
We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.
His 2008 acceptance speech at the DNC mentions “Republicans” five times, and never in a disparaging manner. It does not mention labor unions even once.
Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and independents across this great land — enough! This moment — this election — is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.
The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans — Democrats and Republicans — have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.
I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America – they have served the United States of America.
The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past.
And I’ve seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they’d pick up a Democratic ballot, but did.
Clinton and Obama are still alive today, they are still centrist, and they are still extremely popular.
If Trump got his way and was allowed to run for a third term in 2028, is there any doubt that Obama could defeat him?
There is no duality in which savvy, intelligent political players arrive at “Centrism wins,”
Obama and Clinton were centrists. They won.
Given his lackluster election results, apparently they don’t actually find him very captivating.
I assure you there are Fox news viewers in Vermont, too.
Bernie won fewer votes in Vermont, his home state, than Kamala. One of the rare incumbent Democratic Senators who actually underperformed Harris.
#almostDrWho
They didn’t all go poof.
Not all moderates are Dems. Many are independents.
I see plenty of leftists saying things like “I refuse to vote for Democrats”.
I see plenty of moderates saying things like “I usually don’t vote the Democrats but this time I will”.
It makes more sense for Democrats to appeal to the latter then the former.
That want their biggest supporters to vote for them.
But leftists are not their biggest supporters. Moderates are.
Democrats are trying to win elections in America, so it doesn’t matter how their platform compares to the left in France.
They are trying to appeal to the American center, which means people like my supervisor and my mail carrier. Those people are not leftists but they are more likely to vote for Democrats than many leftists are.
Last year, progressives said they could not support Biden because of inflation. Or because of student debt. Or because of the BNSF strike.
It’s clear Democrats cannot rely on support from progressives, and for this reason it makes sense for Democrats to try to appeal to moderates. Unlike progressives, moderates seem willing to support Democrats as they are instead of requiring them to be something else.
That’s true, centrists need progressives to win and progressives need centrists to win.
The question is whether Democrats can more easily win over more centrists or more progressives.
A successful candidate needs to win both.
Sure, it needs to be reformed. But if progressive candidates cannot be viable until the electoral system is reformed, then we should support moderates until that happens.
Furthermore, some offices are in less need of systemic reform than others. For example, elections for Senator and governor are straightforward popular vote contests unaffected by gerrymandering. Therefore they are relatively fairer tests of the electability of progressive candidates.
Primaries: “I agree with those progressive policies, but we need to vote for the person most likely to win”
That’s what moderates in the party believe. If progressives want to move the party left, they will have to prove moderates wrong. They can only do this by actually winning primaries and then winning in the general.
For example, when AOC successfully primaried Crowley. Or when Newman successfully primaried Lipinsky. Progressives need more victories like those to become dominant within the party. If they can’t achieve that, then moderates are right.
How’d trying to go after progressives work for Sanders? The progressive base is not large enough to win a primary, much less the general.
Social Security has (a) no debt and (b) a perpetual source of revenue. Therefore, it can never go bankrupt or become insolvent.
The only question is if it will be forced to reduce its expenses by up to 30%.