• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

'17 Specials & '18 Midterms Thread

The Bernie would have won trope assumes there were many disaffected Democrats or left leaning folks who didn't show up or voted Trump because Bernie lost the primary. I'm not sure that's the case. I think a lot of people who stayed home didn't like Bernie or Hillary. The Democrats blew an 18 month PR opportunity with a weak field, not because the candidates were too this or too that. But because they weren't all that likable. The fact Bernie Sanders was the darling of the primary shows how much room there was for a likeable candidate.
 
PhDeac said:
I doubt black voters would have turned out en masse for a "true progressive" in Alabama. You run someone who can win and will listen to constituents.

27, keep us posted on Boatwright vs. Mace. Looks like an interesting race.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Alabama Black voters didn't turn out en masse for Doug Jones, they turned out en masse against Roy Moore. They probably would have turned out for anyone. I don't think the Black vote alone is enough to win in Alabama, except in Democratic primaries. In this case, it required low(ish) white turn out, 1.7% write in ballots and about 8% of Republicans voting for a Democrat in addition to massive and monolithic black voter turn out and Jones still only won by 1.5%. Any other Republican runs and the Dems lose this race. In this case Dems were very smart to run a candidate that was an average white guy that moderate Pubs wouldn't hate and could appeal to black voters with the KKK convictions.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Why?
Click to expand...

Because black people who still live in Alabama probably aren't all that progressive. Roy Moore was status quo. A "true progressive" would have been a major shift.
 
PhDeac said:
The Bernie would have won trope assumes there were many disaffected Democrats or left leaning folks who didn't show up or voted Trump because Bernie lost the primary. I'm not sure that's the case. I think a lot of people who stayed home didn't like Bernie or Hillary. The Democrats blew an 18 month PR opportunity with a weak field, not because the candidates were too this or too that. But because they weren't all that likable. The fact Bernie Sanders was the darling of the primary shows how much room there was for a likeable candidate.
Click to expand...

Bernie takes away the populist advantage that Trump had in MI and WI. Running an equally populist Democrat, would have left the pubs with only racism and sexism as their primary policy differences.
 
One thing that confuses me is why Centrists seem to believe that southern Democrats/indys are more socially liberal than fiscal. Where does this myth originate? I've never found it to be true in research or anecdotes.

How do you run a candidate in Alabama who is pro-life, but claim he is a moderate? His abortion stance didnt lose him Alabama, but you think universal healthcare was a bridge too far? That's extremely hypocritical.
 
Who said "universal healthcare was a bridge too far?"
 
I don't mean to speak for mdmh, but I would guess that this Jacobin article summarizes our concern. I was studying abroad during the Berlusconi years, and everyone hated Berlusconi. This article sums up the failures of the neoliberal center to combat Berlusconism. I find it to be a persuasive argument against the calls to run boring, centrist candidates.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/being-anti-trump-isnt-enough


This sounds familiar:
Beyond such decisions as abolishing inheritance tax and a botched attempt to create a two-party voting system, Berlusconi’s rule was notable less for economic and institutional reforms as for his use of office to protect his personal business interests. This principally centered around measures designed to remove constraints on media monopolies (the “Gasparri Law”) and protect him from prosecution for crimes like fraud, massive tax evasion, and paying a seventeen-year-old for sex.

Romano Prodi, today a leading figure in the Democratic Party, denounced Berlusconi’s obsession with passing “ad personam” legislation aimed at protecting himself from jail time. His rule was thus mostly remarkable for a tedious soap opera of court appearances, appeals, and counter-attacks against what he labeled a politically motivated caste of judges.

Hoping that the courts would punish Berlusconi for his dubious business dealings, the center-left merely mirrored his attempt to polarize Italian politics around his own persona rather than questions of general interest or economic recovery. Following the sweeping “Clean Hands” trials and the emergence of judge-politicians like Antonio di Pietro (in 1993–94 a lead prosecutor against Berlusconi’s friend Bettino Craxi, and later founder of the liberal “Italy of Values” party and minister in Prodi’s government), prosecutors and corruption charges increasingly took the place of substantial political issues in left discourse.
Click to expand...

Indeed, during the post-2008 European crisis the Democratic Party (formed by the Democrats of the Left and fragments of the old Christian Democracy in 2007) even adopted positions favoring much harsher budget cuts than Berlusconi himself, attacking him for his “unseriousness” in conforming to the European Central Bank’s austerity demands.
Click to expand...

Conspiring with Angela Merkel and incoming European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, over the summer of 2011, Napolitano worked to position former EU commissioner and Goldman Sachs adviser Mario Monti as premier. Appointing Monti a senator for life in November 2011, Napolitano intended to form an unelected government of technocrats to carry out la manovra, slashing the budget deficit without those involved ever being accountable to the electorate. As Anderson recounts, “Under threat of destruction by the bond markets should he resist, Berlusconi capitulated, and within a week Monti was sworn in as the country’s new ruler, at the head of an unelected cabinet of bankers, businessmen and technocrats . . .” Those who had long attacked Berlusconi for subverting Italian democracy didn’t seem to mind.

The supposed “fascist” Berlusconi thus fell victim to an antidemocratic coup. Beyond the Monti administration’s role in implementing a slew of anti-labor and budget-cutting “reforms,” this maneuvering was a lackluster success even within the narrow terms of keeping Berlusconi out of office.

When the country did again go to the polls in February 2013, the Democrats again failed to win a majority. Unable to form a government, they squared the circle by forming a grand coalition including none other than Silvio Berlusconi. Having used the need to fight Berlusconi as the stick with which to discipline the Left, the Blairites now combined with him in government.
Click to expand...

The point is not that Berlusconi or Trump today are mere paper tigers, “only as bad” as what went before. Rather, it is that pandering to their “honest conservative” opponents or painting them as foreign to mythologized national values has no chance of success.

We should know this. Not just because of the harmful effects illustrated by the Italian case, but because we saw it fail in the United States on November 8. Exactly these arguments were the entire basis of Hillary Clinton’s lesser-evil campaign.
Click to expand...
 
maybe, or maybe it doesnt tell us anything because he was running against Hillary Clinton
 
I want to know what MDMH thinks is more successful than a Democrat winning an AL Senate seat and how he would have achieved it. This could be YUGE for 2018.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top