2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWill Clinton be to the Left or Right of Obama?
Curious how people perceive this.
I supported Obama early on in 2008 because he struck me as the viable liberal option at that point in time. I still believe he's governed more liberally than Clinton would have, especially in his 2nd term.
What say you?
Marr
(20,317 posts)Press Virginia
(2,329 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)IMO, it'll shake out close to the same.
Prism
(5,815 posts)I don't actually disagree, but I'm curious about your why there.
BootinUp
(47,188 posts)the same direction. Of course the make up of the congress will be an important factor. In '08 Clinton's published positions were arguably slightly more liberal or agressive than Obama (healthcare comes to mind). But they were very close.
onecaliberal
(32,898 posts)CobaltBlue
(1,122 posts)A president Hillary Clinton, due to the timing and trajectory, along with a shattered Republican Party, would have better opportunity to oversee more left wingand transformativepolicies than Barack Obama.
I think theres a parallel: 1968 marked a Republican presidential realigning periodthe party won seven of ten election cycles (concluding in 2004)beginning with Richard Nixon. If the Democratic Party wins Election 2016, there could be no denial that 2008 marked a Democratic presidential realigning period beginning with Barack Obama. (No minority realigning party has ever stopped the majority party from winning three consecutive presidential election cycles. Look at 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932, and 1968.)
Not every time has the realigning president ushered in the policies, through leadership, transformative to their party and the nation. So, I think there may be a parallel between Nixon and Obama. Nixons Republican successor, Ronald Reagan, is the one who did it for their party. It may be that way for Obamas Democratic successor.
This speaks partly to why I trust Bernie Sanders more than Hillary to deliver. But, for a nominee Hillary Clintonshe knows that this Democratic Party is not, overall, the same one when husband Bill was president.
With the transformative changes with the Affordable Care Act (though certainly not left wing) and same-sex marriage
one can tell the nation is getting lots more liberal. The Republican Partys primaries voters nominating Donald Trump do not care one bit that he is not truly conservativethat shows how much they are committed to being sincerely conservative. So, traditional liberalism has an opportunity going forward during this Democratic presidential realigning period.
Prism
(5,815 posts)Not that I totally agree with it, but you've given it a lot of thought, and it's worth pausing and taking into consideration.
Thank you for that.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)auntpurl
(4,311 posts)Which works for me.
0rganism
(23,970 posts)as far as i could tell, Obama himself governed to his own right, maybe to play it up the middle in the deeply divided nation he saw.
i believe "the middle" is about to shift left. radically.
i can see Hillary governing left of where Obama governed because that's where the electorate is trending. on social issues especially, she'll have a lot more wiggle room on the left, and she probably aligns there personally anyway. on economic issues she's much more prone to triangulation, but she (and Bill) triangulate to positions of power; if the Sanders movement continues within the Democratic party, there will be a solid power center in economic justice, and we could see her completely defy the rampant expectations of neo-liberalism that currently surround her. i don't envision much change in foreign policy, really -- as a nation, we tend toward the hawkish and vengeful, and i doubt that will change much in the next 8 years. still, she could surprise me.
a lot depends on how much of a wave election this turns out to be. if Democrats make solid gains in congress, taking back the senate and maybe even making a play for the gerrymandered house, she could be in the weird position of signing a lot of lefty legislation (of course we thought we had that back in 2009-2010, too, but this is going to be bigger).
the house, you say? but it's gerrymandered all to hell! well yes, and that's exactly why i think a fat wave election could put Democrats into the majority again. remember, in order to gerrymander districts, the Republicans had to break up their "safe seats" into a lot of less safe seats; they traded in a bunch of 10% victory margins for twice as many 5% victory margins. it's a lot easier to swing a 5% hold than a 10% hold, and the demographic estimates used in planning the districts would have been based on an electorate where Hispanic voters (among others) were a lot less pissed off at the Republicans than they are now.
kind of wandered off the point there, what i'm getting at is HRC may end up surprising people who thought she'd be a moderate centrist -- not because she isn't, but because the moderate center itself is in motion.
BootinUp
(47,188 posts)joshcryer
(62,276 posts)By supporting a public option and mandate that made her more to Obama's left on health care. By refusing to put Social Security and Medicare completely on the table that put her to Obama's left on social welfare. On all other issues they were virtually identical, though Clinton eventually voted against Telecom Immunity once the nomination was beyond the horizon (while Obama voted for it), which would've put her to Obama's left on that issue.
She'll continue the leftward shift that the country as a whole is experiencing. But it won't be by her own accord, she'll follow the trends, which Obama helped set in motion. Obama's first year was tumultuous, the core of the health care bill was gutted (public option, the biggest selling point), the tradeoffs for the Bush tax cuts sunsetting were horrible but necessary (and the raise to $350k for the top bracket was an unnecessary "compromise" .
Actually trying to put everything on the table with regards to Medicare and Social Security, while a campaign promise, was abhorrent and arguably led to some losses in 2010 (some, not all; mostly blue dogs who were afraid to ride the coat tails of the "catfood commission President" due to utter misinformation about Simpson-Bowles, which btw went no where and never left the committee).
All the roadmaps are already well in place and there's no much effort needed to do them, 8 years of a Democratic President allows the real policy work to be enacted. Energy sustainability has been part of the US energy roadmap since a year after Obama took office, instructing NREL to bring us close to energy independence by 2050. Even if Clinton sits on her hands, that happens. And that's left progress. And yes, this roadmap, unfortunately, uses fracked natural gas to provide peaking power for renewable energy in the interim until Vehicle to Grid charging can come online.
She'll push equal pay for equal work and it might pass since it appeals to half the electorate and even the right wingers can't vote against something like that. Though it's unclear whether it will even have an impact given how corporations handle their employment payments, and that will likely result in years of lawsuits, potentially going beyond her time in office. That will be a long protracted fight in the courts.
Speaking of the courts, Ginsburg, the most liberal justice by far, was appointed by Bill Clinton. The other more liberal justices by Obama. Hillary's justices will be liberal on social issues and liberty issues, most likely. But like Obama's appointments, will probably side with corporations on many cases. But she has said that she will have a Citizens United litmus test. Something like Citizens United crosses the corporate line and falls into the social and liberty category, which she is personally familiar with given that the case itself involved a movie about her.
But even some Republicans are against Citizens United, so that's sort of a gimmie, I'm just throwing it out there. Her courts would be at least as liberal as Obama's and probably more so since you want to replace Ginsburg with someone who is at least as liberal as her to maintain status quo (and frankly, knowing her, she'd demand it in any private conversation), but they will be much younger, so they'll probably be more liberal than Ginsburg was when she joined (Ginsburg was pretty moderate in the beginning).
The biggest things Clinton offers to the left is an effect on downticket races. I think that she will be intimately involved in those races, will show up at campaign events, and will make it clear that she can't get anything done without it. This is a virtual shift from the 2008 campaign where a lot of promises were being made, but no one was pointing out how you needed congress to get them done. Granted, at that time, we expected to win back congress, because of the Bush years, we were at the bottom of the barrel. But it needs to be emphasized over and over and over that Presidential powers are very limited when it comes to domestic issues.
I think that if we can run left wing candidates like Feingold or Warren (but not more radical types), we will be able to affect some serious, unbelievable change, and I think that Clinton would embrace a Feingold or Warren, and she'd fight for them hard, and they'd respect her. I also think that Clinton would just shake off whatever vitriol comes her way and support blue dogs, which while on the onset wouldn't necessarily mean progress, would count when the big legislation comes up. Want a sustainable energy bill? Get some blue dogs, they'll vote for it.
That being said, I think that Clinton's presidency will be a continuation of Obama's, and that, in reality, Obama should be credited for calming things down, moving us in the correct policy trajectory, and ultimately making the already left shift that we're experiencing, whether the right likes it or not, a smoother transition.
BootinUp
(47,188 posts)Prism
(5,815 posts)By supporting a public option and mandate that made her more to Obama's left on health care.
The mandate dragged people into insurance so the stats could be massaged. "Look at all the people with insurance now!" But with co-pays and deductibles out of reach, you now have lots more insured people who still do not have health care. People cannot pay for care. But, they're damn sure to make payments, because they now have to. This is not Democratic. The mandate was Hillary's idea. Obama eventually went along with it. The insurance companies won. People on the street lost.
I don't know what universe you live in, but a mandate for insurance with no guarantee of care is not a Left position.
"Energy independence by 2050."
*slams face into keyboard* According to every reputable scientist, that's about three decades too late. But, yay for eventually!
"Equal pay for equal work." Agreed! Until you get an actual economist involved. And then . . . that falls apart like crazy. And I don't even want to get into it. And how much pay? The new, lower wages off-shoring is managing? So, as long as everyone is unequal together? Then it's chill?
Citizens United is terrible. Someday. Eventually. For now? Well, Hillary needs it. But, c'mon man. Just one more hit. One last hit. Just give it to me. I'll pay you on Tuesday, I swear.
Like watching a heroin addict promise they'll sort out the dealers. Hoo boy.
Why spin these realities. Do they help you? Okedoke. I'm over here actually watching the world.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Which is why Obama had to put it in there. It was going to happen regardless, which is why Krugman and all the policy wonks argued for it from the start. Single payer is a mandate, too, you know, only if you didn't pay your single payer fees you'd go to jail for tax fraud (FICA tax evasion).
What happened was "you have to have a mandate, but if you want this, we're taking the public option." Had Obama had a full mandate to begin with (which he did for children) he wouldn't have had to say "oh, I want a mandate, to get this thing passed," he could've said "I've had a mandate from the start, the OMB agrees with my mandate, I'm not budging on the public option, it passed the house, get your shit together."
2050 is the policy roadmap, we're already past the no return point, the heat capacity of the oceans is full, there's no returning, and geoengineering is on our horizon. But 2050 happens anyway unless a Republican reverses policy, which they would as we saw with Bush reversing Clinton's environmental policies (in particular the gutting of the EPA). With a sustainability bill, you know, something that has to pass congress, we'd have it in a decade or so. But it's already too late to mitigate climate change.
As far as equal pay, the EEOC would have to handle it by a case by case basis. It's a very complicated thing to be sure, but, equal pay is left wing, while you bemoan it as "falling apart like crazy."
As far as Citizens United? You're right. Clinton is going to show just how horrible it is, with how terrible Trump is going to do in the elections coming up. He going to lose so badly, and it'll be largely due to money being poured into Clinton's campaign. A billion dollar campaign. Republicans will be begging to end it. They are already terrified of it. Trump and Cruz are actually one of the few candidates that are for it. Mainly because Trump wants it to pay for his campaign, and Cruz is a crummy evil man.
And she'll laugh all the way to the White House.
And like Sanders position on the F-35, she will use it even though she's against it, as long as it exists and is available to her. There's nothing wrong with that. That's political acumen.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Raine
(30,540 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Probably to his right.
However, she has advertised herself as more or less running for Obama's 3rd term, and I think Obama has done a decent job- not perfect, but I feel he has more or less held some of the DC authoritarians at bay, despite a great deal of institutional inertia in that direction.
It is up to the public to continue to press her to represnt the views of a majority of Democrats, not the positions of the Debbie Wasserman Schultzes.
Kentonio
(4,377 posts)Doesn't mean that's how she'd actually act once in the White House. She has very blatantly and on many occasions adopted positions for the sake of political expediency and then dropped them once they paid off in votes.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Pastiche423
(15,406 posts)Garrett78
(10,721 posts)And left vs. right is open to some interpretation.
The POTUS doesn't create systems so much as operate within them, and you never know when a mass movement or major event is going to cause a shift.
That said, I'd expect a Clinton Administration to operate in very similar fashion to the Obama Administration.