Nobody like a RW shithead like David Frum to tell liberals about their "tribe--"

[Jackpine Radical]

This is wrong on so many levels--Wow. Obama just isn't one of our "tribe."

How Obama is Setting the Stage for Hillary in 2016
by David Frum Sep 15, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

Peter Beinart says the Democratic party is shifting to the left. He's right. He says that this shift spells trouble for Hillary Clinton in 2016. He's wrong. Or anyway, it's well within Hillary Clinton's power to prove him wrong.

People who write about politics are adept with words and excited by political ideas -- that's true almost by definition. But those are unusual skills and interests, even among people who care a lot about politics. Most of us are less moved by ideas than by emotions; more by music than by words.

From this point of view, "left" and "right" are not logical categories. They are not about policy, not about programs. They are about about identity, about tribes, about loyalty.

And it is from this point of view that President Obama has been found wanting by many liberals and progressives. He' s just not a tribal guy! Since he emerged on the national scene back in 2004, Barack Obama's big guiding idea has been the unreality of American political divisions: "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America." Campaigning against Hillary Clinton in 2008, Obama again and again denounced the "old politics" practiced by certain unnamed Democratic politicians, promising instead a new era of consensus and progress. "We can be a party that tries to beat the other side by practicing the same do-anything, say-anything, divisive politics that has stood in the way of progress; or we can be a party that puts an end to it." He warned against "nominating a candidate who will unite the other party against us" and urged instead that Democrats choose "one who can unite this country around a movement for change" – i.e., him.

[MNBrewer]

1. David Frum isn't even a broken clock

he's like a clock set to the wrong time, ALWAYS wrong.

[JaneyVee]

2. EVERYONE is responding to that article on People's View. It made A LOT of noise on

Social media yesterday and is still making its rounds today.

[PCIntern]

3. He's also a smug, supercilious sack o'shit...

I wish he would wipe that stupid grin from his dopey face.

[LWolf]

4. The Left IS about policy and programs.

The Left is not a party.

Obama sure did a great job uniting the nation by throwing the Left under the bus and embracing republicanism. Look at how they've embraced him back, making political gains all day long because Democrats won't fight them, while they rail against his "socialism," his efforts to take all their guns away and deprive them of ammunition, too, his illegitimate birth certificate, etc., etc., etc..

They love him, all right. He's a political wet dream for Republicans: a guy who hobbles his tribe and leaves theirs unfettered.

[djean111]

5. +1000

[Igel]

6. Look at DU.

It's got a lot of boundaries, and the boundaries are accentuated and defended.

The Left isn't a "party." It's got a lot of factions, though, each with turf. When you see instead of a detailed exposition of viewpoints name calling and "outing," you know you're dealing with group dynamics and group boundaries. When "the best of them is worse than the least of us" kind of talk is standard, you're looking at group boundaries. "Sock puppet" and forced-choice or ad-hominem fallacies have no part in rational exegesis of opinions and viewpoints. Yet they're commonplaces on DU and among the left.

One person who would have denied that the Left is a "tribe" and not just people all possessing a well-developed set of heuristic mechanisms for policy analysis based firmly in rationalistic thought--all intellectual and rational--when he found out I worked for a church decided the proper course of action was, in surprise, to call me a "fucking Nazi". He knew nothing about the church, but by being a theist I was immediately in not just another, foreign group but into the most hated group of all--those who killed Jews, Roma, gays, and who preached the most virulent form of race-hate. Rational, indeed.


Some use the word "tribe" where I use "group." In many respects it's a better term because a tribe isn't just a single group, but a group of clusters of smaller groups; tribe, subtribes, clans, families. The thing about tribes is how they respond to outside threats. Families fight until something threatens the clan. Clans fight until something threatens the tribe. So also the "Left." (And the Right, for that matter.)

"Tribe", however, also prompts cries of "racism" from those who want to not pay attention to the analysis the term's applied to but somehow be offended by assuming it's just gotta be a slur of some kind.

[LWolf]

7. While I agree in theory with

what (I think) you are trying to say, DU is not "the left." Neither is the Democratic Party, which is more centrist and center/right than left.

DU, at one time, self-identified as a "left-wing" discussion group. I always thought that was kind of an oxymoron, since it also demands loyalty to the Democratic Party, which is not at all "left."

Eventually, of course, I figured out that the self-identification meant "left-wing of the Democratic Party," which is not really left-wing at all.

Since the election of a center-right neoliberal president who self-identified as a "new democrat," the term "left-wing" has gone away, to be replaced by "liberal."

All of which I mention simply to point out that DU, while hosting some of the American left, and some who are at least more "left" than the mainstream Democratic Party, is not really "the left."

It's been part of the continuous shift to the right for the "centrists," beginning with the DLC, to co-opt terms like "progressive," and re-invent them as something other than what people automatically think that they mean. That's why so many polls of self-identified "liberals" seem to approve of distinctly non-liberal (socially) policies. They aren't truly "liberal" in the traditional social liberal sense. They are neo-liberals, which is a different kettle of fish all together.

As a member of what passes for "the left" in the United States, I have felt threatened since Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency. For good reason, as it turns out. I haven't felt any more secure under so-called "centrist" Democrats than I did under Republicans. I have been shocked and awed, though, and not in a good way, at how fast and hard Obama and his administration threw themselves into the fight to purge the remaining left from the Democratic Party.

Tribe, party, group, faction, gang, crew, posse, clicque...whatever the label, people certainly tend to identify in groups.

I'm sorry you were called a "Nazi." I've noticed that, when people feel persecuted by a group, they tend to form highly negative opinions of that group, and to react viciously to members. In reality, the religious can not belong to one group; there are too many belief systems. Neither can a specific religion, such as Christianity; again, there are way too many interpretations and ways of expressing belief to homogenize them. In reality, atheism itself is another belief system. I'm not sure what that has to do with being part of "the left," though. One can be an atheist with a social conscience, or a Christian trying to live like Christ, or a Buddhist contemplating karma, or a Muslim trying to eliminate inequality, or a Jew trying to make the world a better place, and be a member of "the left." It's a bit harder to be a confirmed capitalist, lol, just like the camel and the needle, but still...