My answer - greed, racism and white male privilege

polls of what people want and stand for. Republicans have turned into an authoritarian regime without regard for any other point of view. It can be seen as a cult as they will stand up for things they don't even like as long as there is an 'R' after it.

Our only hope seems to be that they seem to be a bit confused about whether they want to be a Christo-fascist Talbangelist Party, or a Corporate Socialism Party.

It's always been a bit of an unholy alliance.

media". It's a myth.

What Republicans call the far left is really the center. Democrats never moved left, Republicans moved right.

and that's another message we need to put out there every chance we get.

but I'm coming to suspect there may have been a right wing plot to hide from us just how supportive of liberal and progressive policies mainstream Democrats were, and of course to persuade the weak minded among us that we weren't.

How is it that so many polls, before things like Elizabeth Warren's activism, especially, blew the lid off the truth, reported that Democrats did not average solidly liberal and want strong progressive advances?

Under-reports of the strength behind them would have sabotaged Democratic officeholders who wanted to push for big achievements but believed they didn't have the support of the citizenry for that.

Before then, although electing Obama definitely belied this picture of us, in political effect we were otherwise what a press very heavily infiltrated with right-wing agents reported us to be.

are IMHO.

The forces who took over the Republican Party redefined both strong and far-right conservatives as moderate, "true" conservatives. The family values people. They shamed genuine moderate conservatives as RINOs and liberals, and only some had the intellect and strength of character to refuse to embrace the GOP's new "old Southern white male conservative" character.

I considered the left/right scale as starting from 1 (liberal), going to 100 (conservative), with most of the bell curve hanging around 50. Back then, I thought of myself as a 45 on the scale.

Now that I am no longer young, I have moved to a 42, but the conservatives have pushed the right to 1000.

to institute those policies you need a huge propaganda apparatus, fringe voting blocks, voter suppression, gerrymandering and other things I'm leaving out . which creates a sytem that must move right to survive.

At Breakneck speed and full of venom.

THAT's why we need to move to the left, otherwise we all just become what Republicans used to be.

She no longer considered herself a repub. limited discussion as to why.

Eisenhower's GOP re-election platform (against Dem challenger Adlai Stevenson) would be considered "Socialism" now by his own party.



As far as I'm concerned, Eisenhower was the last good Republican and I was too young to vote then. But I think he's the reason I remained independent for so long.

Even though I've been voting for Democrats as long as I've been old enough to vote (since 1972) I always thought maybe another Eisenhower might come along some day. But there never was another good Republican after him, so in 2008 I became a Democrat forever.

Back when GOP really stood for Grand Old Party - rather than Greedy Old Pricks.

They say it has elements of the truth but significant elements of being false.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1956-republican-platform/

That seems centrist to me.

The right has moved so far to the right that anything in the middle or popular with progressive thinking looks left. What's extreme? Blocking a Supreme Courts nominee from a legitimate President? Making an underage rape victim continue pregnancy full term against her wishes? Removing children from their parent's arms? Then putting them in what looks like large dog pens? Or wanting Healthy Americans and clean air and a better world for the future? I know the later sounds outrageous. The GOP. God's own party for their own people. Don't believe the hype.
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expression of what it means to say "I'm a Democrat." I whole-heartedly agree with every word of your post. Thank you for it.

They appear to be in the business of defining just where the division lies and how much of it belongs to the DCCC.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law considered to be a major welfare reform. The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract with America and was authored by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-FL-22). President Bill Clinton signed PRWORA into law on August 22, 1996, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise to "end welfare as we have come to know it".

The way I remember it, Nixon was to the left of Clinton.

To say there has been no blame at all in the Democratic Party for these trends wouldn't be entirely honest.

On the Republican side of the aisle, there is the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, Federalist society people, several economic libertarians and a smattering of proud white supremacists. All groups who espouse what are traditionally considered as extreme views.

The Democrats add in a few Democratic Socialists and NOW it's time to PANIC.

The Republican Party has never been further to the right than it is now. Not in my 50 year lifetime anyway. Barely a word from the media on that fact.

There isn't a single fascist regime in the last 100 years that hasn't taken office, without corporate backing.

Mussolini. Hitler. Suharto. Pinochet. The Argentine Junta. Bolsonaro. Cheeto. You name it.

of those asking about the perceived leftward shift.

BACKWARD!

That anything vaguely representing humanity is now accused of being "far left."

it is like the Republicans think they are the best for this country, when in really they are wrong!

This framing of democrats comes from the right. When you repeat it, even if only to debate it, you reinforce it.

If you are not familiar with the concept of "framing", please check out George Lakoff's book of that title. It is more critical now, in an age of disinformation and its magnification, to understand how to best frame our own positions, rather than to defend against their framing of us.

What I'm trying to do is to get the M$M to change their narrative. Difficult to do.

Yes, we need to change our narrative (assuming you really are a Democrat) to emphasize these points.

Case in point: the ACA, Obamacare. The media bought the RW line that majorities hated it. Well, that ignored that half of that "majority" thought it didn't go far enough. Pretty much every facet of the bill-with the possible exception of the individual mandate-polls very well across the political spectrum, but no, "everybody hates it."

Their donors, the wealthiest and corporations, have shown them that crime does pay.

touchy topic....for some.

When the southern Democrats defected as LBJ predicted, the traditional big money corporate republicans saw an opportunity. They began to exploit the compromise the southern dixiecrats made and they started to exploit racism and misogyny to foster hate towards poor people. The democrats from southern states had been strong supporters of social programs they saw as helping poor white people. Segregation and institutional racism created concentrations of poverty among people of color which supported the illusions and stereotypes of people of color as a majority of criminals and welfare recipients.
This turned the previous supporters of social programs against them. And the ideas that women and children should be fed and supported out of basic human civility began to disappear. One particular concern was single mothers. The racist myths and stereotypes of black women having multiple children to increase benefits was exploited further when attention was finally given to white single mothers. With integration, the idea of a spreading effect, and "infection" of blackness into the white population gained popularity.
Corporate influences gained even more traction with the promotion of "workfare" which eventually morphed into the welfare reform of 1996. It had widespread bipartisan support with only a few Democrats trying to hang on. But, income inequality getting more extreme and campaign spending increasing astronomically had left national Democratic candidates in a position of needing to neutralize the financial advantages. And unfortunately, republicans moved further right every time Democrats took a step in their direction.
It's no accident that unions were busted and Walmart, malls, and other big boxes became the largest employers of working class women along the way. Growing income inequality and demographic changes has allowed the continued villain and "spreading effect" narratives to be exploited to scare poor and working class people.
The worst fear of many white working class and middle class people is that their children will be "infected" with melanin and/or poverty.
The backlash to reproductive autonomy also provided an opportunity for the increasingly money focused religious right to shift their focus and abandon compassion for poor people in the interest of "family values."

relative concept. Today we don't think of FDR's policies as 'left'. After 12 years of Coolidge and Hoover, I bet many thought his policies were 'left' in 1932.

Contrary to the media and RW hype, Dems as a whole, haven't gone so far to the left.

the right thinks they are God given to be correct