The Republican party waged a civil war on itself, the battle for the soul of the GOP beginning in the mid-90s. The result was the Party of Trump.
Now the Democratic party is in the beginning stages of a civil war of its own. Like inside the GOP, it's a battle between moderates and extremists. The extremists won in the Republican civil war. Who will win the Democratic civil war?
During a three hour Democratic caucus call Rep. Spanberger said “
We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. . . . We lost good members because of that.....If we are classifying Tuesday as a success . . . we will get fucking torn apart in 2022.”
I agree with Spanberger.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...dae5ca-1f6e-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html
An angry dispute erupted among House Democrats on Thursday, with centrist members blasting their liberal colleagues during a private conference call for pushing far-left views that cost the party seats in Tuesday’s election that they had worked hard to win two years ago.
Follow the latest on Election 2020
The bitter exchange, which lasted more than three hours as members sniped back and forth over tactics and ideology, reflected the extent to which the 2020 campaign exposed simmering tensions in the party even as its presidential nominee, Joe Biden, stands on the brink of achieving their biggest goal of the year — ousting President Trump.
Party leaders had expressed certainty that Trump’s divisiveness and mishandling of the pandemic would help them expand their majority with wins in GOP-held districts — and yet they lost at least a half-dozen seats and failed to retake the Senate. The explanation laid out by centrists, according to multiple people who were on the call and spoke on the condition of anonymity, is that Republicans were easily able to paint them all as socialists and radical leftists who endorse far-left positions such as defunding the police....
Strategically she is right. There are far more votes in the center than in either extremes. The progressive left is the smallest faction of either major parties coalitions and the polling data clearly shows they are the least popular. That doesn’t mean that they are always wrong or that we don’t need a truly liberal wing in American politics but that doesn’t change the fact that America is essentially a centrist nation (center left, center and center right).
The evidence is clear that what should have been a blue wave was undermined by the progressive liberal wing of the party. Most Americans find the European style Social Democrat policies unpalatable. Notions such as defunding the police, which was interpreted as eliminating polic, or universal guaranteed income which violates traditional Protestant work ethic are not ideas that the majority of Americans accept.
So co-opting the middle, as the GOP, continues on its path further to the right is a great opportunity but make no mistake about it. If there’s no center and Americans have to choose between the far left and the far right the majority will choose the far right. This Presidential election may have been a rejection by the majority of Trumps boorish behavior, inconsistent policies and gross incompetence in his management of the COVID pandemic but the vast support he did receive was solid evidence of Americans rejection of progressive left policies.
But here’s the real question, even if Democrats are able to co-opt the political center what will they do to address the complete failure of supply side economic policies with something other than socialism and what will they do to reverse the impact our past trade policies which have done so much damage to rural and small town communities by dissolving their economic base in manufacturing?
These two issues are the major drivers of the rural/urban divide which is the true political divide in our nation. So what will Democrats do to support and invest in our rural and small town communities? How will they provide an economic pathway for them? How will they reach out to them with infrastructure, IT and communication resources, transportation and logistics networks that currently by pass them.
Currently I see no efforts by Democrats to reach out to rural and small town Americans to bridge this divide. When I discuss this with my urban liberal friends their responses are either arrogant and dismissive of them or down right pejorative towards them as being ignorant, poorly educated Bubbas who are to stupid to know where their best interest lies.
If the Democrats sincerely wish to co-opt the middle and cure the rural/urban divide then this shit needs to stop and Democrats need to come up with rural, small community development programs that respects their values and promotes their economic opportunities and not social Democratic hand outs as these folks intend on earning their bread. These dim witted ideas from condescending and arrogant urban elites just alienates them further.
So that opportunity is there, right now and Democrats can strategically take advantage of it through a little self reflection and prioritizing rural/small town issues instead of being dismissive about them.
So the Democrats need to come up with real solutions that advance rural/small town economic interests and community values that Donald Trump campaigned on so effectively but did so little for. Cause if they don’t, sure as the sun comes up, they will throw there selves behind another demagogue like Trump only the next demagogue may be far worse than Trump.
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