Why Democratic Politicians Are Constantly Triangulating (Yglesias)

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/01/284516/why-democratic-politicians-are-constantly-triangulating/



There really is a structural asymmetry here -- note that twice as many Independents classify themselves as conservative as do liberal. Also, while we can rant til the cows come home about how people are "actually" liberal, for all their alleged support in polls for liberal policies they keep electing people opposed to them. Note that Democrats are more likely to classify themselves as "moderate" than the population as a whole is.

I suppose there's a chicken-and-egg game here, but while it's tempting to say the Democratic leadership has been leading pulling voters to the right, I think, rather, they've been going where the votes are.

And people may not like the fact, but the country does NOT simply break down into liberals and Republicans.

and raising taxes is not an exclusively liberal position either.

so if you make the argument, "well, we can't leave entitlements alone and we can't raise taxes because only a minority of Americans are liberal" --that's wrong.

because you don't do those things because they are liberal positions --you do them because they are popular and they work. stop worrying about the damned labels and do what the people say they want.

that's the disconnect. hell, even you bought into it and the OP most certainly has.

but you're both completely wrong.

As the OP pointed out, despite what people may say in a few simple issue polls, there are still a lot of people out there who identify politically with something other than the liberal Democratic cause. If you want to yell at someone, start with them.

How many hear nothing but Limbaugh bullshit 24-7?

30 years ago, Reaganites began one of the most successful semantic campaigns ever: turning "liberal" into a dirty word. They succeeded magnificently; even liberals don't want to call themselves liberal anymore (everyone's "progressive" now!). So it's unsurprising that a poll would find very few self-identified liberals.

But poll people on policies, and guess what? People are liberal. Look at the debt ceiling debate. A clear majority wanted taxes to go up on the wealthy. A clear majority wanted Social Security and Medicare left alone. Or back during the health care debate, when a clear majority wanted single payer. People are liberal. They just don't like the word.

And where Dems fail -- I'm looking at you, Mr. President -- is in assuming they need to appease moderates, rather than understanding that they can win by appealing, unapologetically, to the liberalism of the average American.

People are liberal. They just don't like the word.

People say weird things in polls. I simply don't believe people are liberal given that they keep not electing liberals to office.

but it was killed by corporate lobbyists.

There's not a 1-to-1 correlation between what people believe and who gets elected. But there are lots of progressives in Congress -- at least as many as teabaggers -- and in state legislatures. I'd say there are four reasons there are not more:

1) Gerrymandering.
2) The role of money in politics.
3) A GOP noise machine that does a truly extraordinary job, and has since it made the big push into direct-mail campaigns in 1977-78.
4) A Democratic party that got shellacked in 1984 and has been running away from its own ideology for 25 years.

People's ideas aren't magic. They come from the general ideology of the people who control your society. Bipartisan capitulation only pushes people further to the right because it validates the worldview of the far right.

And I'm still not hearing a more concrete meaning of "fight" than "get angry on television".

It has to be the party itself. Look at the two parties right now. Ideologically, how far is Eric Cantor from Alan West? And how far is Steny Hoyer, or even Nancy Pelosi, from Denny Kucinich? There's a far greater ideology gap on our side of the fence, which is why they're winning.

Democratic politicians are listening to the voters, we just don't like what the voters are saying.

Obama destroys Sanders and Grayson's message anyway when he calls or has cronies call them "the professional left" and people whose views are "retarded".

If you do what you claim then they'll ride the bus till the wheels come off.

Triangulation is one party rule under false impressions.

Their fucking jobs are to win voters not stick their fingers in the air and go where the wind blows.

the word "liberal" has become so distorted and "evil" that most people don't want to go anywhere near it! A lot "conservatives" that I know have traditionally liberal views: they want the defense budget cut, they want the wars to end, they think SS should be more, they think Medicare should cover 100% so they don't have to pay for supplemental insurance, they think prescription drugs should cost a lot less, they want us to invest in infrastructure, they want to tax the rich and the corporations ... but if you suggest that they are even the slightest bit liberal, they deny it! "That's not being a liberal, that's just common sense!" :banghead:

They vote for people who are opposed to their beliefs because, let's face it, Republicans have mastered the art of PR! Everyone wants to tax corporations, but no one wants to tax job creators. Living wills and end-of-life planning somehow became death panels. Cuts are now reforms. Torture is now enhanced interrogation ... and that's not so bad, right? :eyes:

We're political junkies ... we pay attention and we know the verbal games they play. We watch CSPAN. We read political blogs and the foreign press. We actually read the damn bills!! Most people hear a sound bite on the news and then decide who they'll vote for. How do you think the Tea Party got elected? People saw them on TV and heard them say, "Government is broken! We pay too many taxes! We want to take our country back!" Sounds great! Hell, we all want that, too! But the devil's in the details. We paid attention to the details and we knew right away that they were extremist nutjobs! Too many other people heard the sound bites, but didn't bother to look into the details. :(

If the Democrats (or the pollsters) truly want to know where the country stands, they should be commissioning polls that ask specific questions about healthcare, taxes, education, SS/Medicare/Medicaid, etc ... but they already know that, which is why they do polls like these.