Bill Clinton saying "We're all Eisenhower Republicans here"
Obama claiming he would have been a republican before the conservative revolution
Hillary trying out her fucking GOLDWATER credentials to get elected.
And there's Biden talking fondly of Strom Thurmond (Although at least he didn't try to claim his political legacy)
Who are they trying to appeal to? Anyone who likes Goldwater isn't going to vote for a Democrat, ever, and anyone else who knows who he was would hate it.
They just don't have the idealistic blinders on. About 30-40% of dems poll as conservative on many issues and there are Goldwater voters in the Dems due to the way party affiliation has shifted. Stuff like the police funding, parking the trans bills where they can quietly die, the border stuff, abortion, etc, isn't an accident. The Problem Solvers Caucus within the dems is an entire group of Manchins and Sinemas and it is at least 3 times the size of the squad while functioning as an actual voting block.
I think people also remember the Obama quote, but don't remember that when he was openly saying that stuff the DSA was campaigning for him the same way it would for Bernie later. So there was no real consequences from the left at that point. Progressives were so deep into self delusion Obama could afford to be honest about what his ideology was and what he intended to do pretty often.
Electoral politics starts to make a lot more sense when you get pilled on the fact that half of US voters - including 30-40% of Democrats, as you said - are conservatives. The reason why US politics is so fucked is because TV news has manufactured a ton of conservative consent. Voters know what they're voting for when they elect these right-wing ghouls.
"Joe Biden sucks" and "Joe Biden is to the left of 80% of Americans" are both true statements, and they're not mutually exclusive. Manchin is probably to the left of two-thirds of Americans, too.
Liberals get a big ol' hit of dopamine when they do something that makes them feel superior to conservatives. Conservatives paint all Democratic politicians as evil without any nuance, so by saying that crap it makes them feel like they are smart and reasonable.
Democratic politicians believe they need approval from Republicans to run for office. It's a very bizarre relationship where seeming more like a Republican but with a D next to your name is a positive credential. Democrats think Republicans are their bosses and they need to have a fully fleshed out resume.
I don't think Republican politicians view this relationship as reciprocal
In an American liberal's wildest dreams the Democrats preside over a completely 50/50 house and senate
It’s a very bizarre relationship
It's a consequence of Cold War politics and the entrenched belief that Democrats are Communists. I think it's often lost in hindsight, but Republicans dominated Presidential politics in the wake of Harry Truman. And the DC Media obsession with White House politics created the impression that Republicans must therefore dominate culturally as well. Therefore, Democrats since Clinton have consistently pandered to Republicans-from-20-years-ago as a means of shoring up their moderate credentials.
In fairness, Republicans will do this as well. The whole "Party of Lincoln" song-and-dance is about making Republicans look comparatively progressive. Eisenhower set the standard as an apolitical centrist (which was kinda true once you disenfranchise half the country). Nixon, Ford, and Bush all ran campaigns to the left of their party's center. Hell, Bush Jr's campaign practically coined the term "Compassionate Conservative" to dilute the Clinton-Era image of a party full of heartless bastards.
The parties rally the base during the primary, then pivot to the center during the general. But its all ultimately rhetorical and meaningless at a policy level.
I think it’s often lost in hindsight, but Republicans dominated Presidential politics in the wake of Harry Truman.
This isn't quite right. Kennedy and Johnson won elections right after Eisenhower. Republicans have held the presidency for 40 years since Truman; Democrats for 32. That's an advantage, but not domination, especially considering that Eisenhower had a Republican Senate and House for two years, but then the Senate was blue until 1980 and the House until 1994.
It's more accurate to say that Truman firmly decided on a post-war anti-communist foreign policy, and that this would become the bipartisan consensus up to the present day (although it did evolve after Vietnam and again after the end of the Cold War). While the U.S. had opposed communism prior to WWII, the last, best chance of going in another direction was at the end of a long war where you had the USSR as an ally, labor was as organized as it ever was, all sorts of colonized nations had serious national liberation movements, and before the national security state really became entrenched. This anti-communism bled into the domestic sphere, leading to the hollowing out of organized labor and social programs, and eventually the rise of neoliberalism in the 70s. Democrats talking about their conservative credentials is just one symptom of this shift.
Republicans have held the presidency for 40 years since Truman; Democrats for 32. That’s an advantage, but not domination, especially considering that Eisenhower had a Republican Senate and House for two years, but then the Senate was blue until 1980 and the House until 1994.
I suppose I'm looking at this from the 90s End Of History perspective, when it was closer to 28 GOP to 20 Dems, with Dems watching their House majority whittled away year after year for three decades, until the big 1994 collapse. The Obama-Era has signaled something of a reversal, particularly in the post-Trump Era as college educated whites defect from the GOP.
While the U.S. had opposed communism prior to WWII, the last, best chance of going in another direction was at the end of a long war where you had the USSR as an ally, labor was as organized as it ever was, all sorts of colonized nations had serious national liberation movements, and before the national security state really became entrenched. This anti-communism bled into the domestic sphere, leading to the hollowing out of organized labor and social programs, and eventually the rise of neoliberalism in the 70s. Democrats talking about their conservative credentials is just one symptom of this shift.
That gets to the direction of the country. I'm not sure it explains why Democrats (who were never shy about being anti-Communist in word or deed) consistently got pillared as the Leftist party in rhetoric. Or why we've seen something of a reversal under Trump, with Dems taking up Red Scare politics and turning it on the GOP in kind.
I wonder if this is a product of White Flight in the 80s and 90s. Is being anti-Communist just code for hating brown people? Is that something which has become harder and harder to sell in a country that's grown unseasonably tan over time?
-
These people are letting the mask slip just a little.
-
It's well documented that dipshit suburbanites like bipartisanship and suburbanites are who decide elections nowadays. There's a reason there are swing state suburbs that have swung 20 points towards the Democrats in the last decade. The "there's no Republican who would vote for a Democrat" myth is a myth. As pathetic as it is, there's an audience for this shit.
-
It's a critical part of the constant rightward shift of the Overton window
Who are they trying to appeal to?
Older white men, their wives, and their failkids.
Centrists love when their own makes efforts to befriend and appease the right. It validates their civility fetish and demonstrates how they are the smart and reasonable people for bridging the divide and seeking compromise.
As centrism is a bourgeois right-wing ideology they still hate the left more than anything else.
Absent any other good explanation, we must assume that the reason they do so is, horrifyingly, because it works.
Imagine Michael Dukakis squeaking out a win in '88 and forever after every Democratic Presidential candidate needing to do a photo-op in a tank "because it works".
Hell, John Kerry doing a hunting trip was its own Rite of Passage going back decades.
It's good to consider that, but it's also possible (1) this has no real effect or (2) they'd be more successful without it, but for whatever reason it's become "conventional wisdom."
There are all sorts of things people do that don't actually work for them.
There's no proof that they'd be more successful without it, or at least no highly paid consultants have told them that there's proof!
