Month: February 2016

Clinton still frames issues in centrist terms that suited the triangulating 1990s better than the more liberal party…

Clinton still frames issues in centrist terms that suited the triangulating 1990s better than the more liberal party of Obama’s last year in office. In making her chief arguments based on electability, pragmatism, and the lack of realism in Sanders’s policies, Clinton only reminded voters of the frustrations of the era when Bill Clinton often tried to split the difference between his own party and the hard right of Newt Gingrich’s congressional Republicans.

To be sure, Sanders is older than Clinton, and he’s been an elected official for a long time. But his brand of democratic socialism was marginal in the party until now, and he’s been able to time his ascension to the national stage to the moment when the party’s base is most receptive to it. Sanders is the person of the hour in large part because he waited for the hour to emerge. 

https://newrepublic.com/article/129569/bernie-sanders-future-democratic-party

1992 called. It wants its White House back.

1992 called. It wants its White House back.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/us/politics/bill-clinton-after-months-of-restraint-unleashes-stinging-attack-on-bernie-sanders.html?referer=http://plus.url.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/us/politics/bill-clinton-after-months-of-restraint-unleashes-stinging-attack-on-bernie-sanders.html&rct=j&ust=1454967733484000&usg=AFQjCNFuG5U8r6vMilgN1Ogw3InHCSlUJQ

It’s called shifting the “Overton Window” and regardless of what you think about the sincerity of Clinton, its…

It’s called shifting the “Overton Window” and regardless of what you think about the sincerity of Clinton, its important that politicians like her are now speaking to progressives about issues that concern them. As recently as 2012 these issues were completely off the agenda.

Another way of looking at this is as a complete failure of the political right to continue setting the agenda as they’ve successfully done for the previous thirty years. This is a notable departure from the era when the Republican party was strong and highly disciplined and on-message. They’ve become accustomed to winning and have grown lazy and dumb as the more thoughtful minds have gradually left the party.

Their past successes have led them up a political cul de sac where every candidate now has to sign up to a gauntlet of “litmus tests” dating from the Culture Wars of the 1980s and 90s. They have their hands tied and are forced to swear allegiance to the shibboleths of a narrower and narrower political base.

In this context and with the current economic climate, it is not hard to see why leftish social-democratic populism is doing well. Long may it continue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/06/opinion/the-sincerest-form-of-flattery.html?referer=http://plus.url.google.com/url?q%3Dhttp://nyti.ms/1QPjIsb&rct=j&ust=1454887352565000&usg=AFQjCNFVpzLM2ByoqSpXavDvnYHMyBZ1LQ