Robert Reich, Well, you're wrong...

[Playinghardball]

[jwirr]

1. Amen.

[calimary]

4. Amen indeed!

[Orsino]

2. That difference may be shrinking, but it's still measured in lives and misery.

Vote like you care, and lobby the fuck out of them whenever you find a spare moment.

[Doctor_J]

3. Alas, this also begs the question, "why do our D reps always try to move closer to the R's"?

they should be running away. Every single issue embraced by the Republicans should be the object of intense ridicule by every single Dem. Instead, this part of Reich's pronouncement

"Expand the military, harm the iddle class, and screw the poor"

goes for many DC "Dems" as well

[calimary]

5. Amen to THIS, too!

[hifiguy]

7. It is the endlessly repeated mantra of

The Turd Way and its wholly owned subsidiaries.

[randome]

8. Because they don't have a choice if they want to be elected.

This country is still too mired in the Reagan 'revolution' to see things clearly. The only result of banging your head against a brick wall is a headache. I think it was considered necessary to move toward the right. Otherwise, the GOP would have an even greater lock on Congress.

Politics doesn't reward losers.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

[guillaumeb]

12. a squirrelly video

How far to the right does everyone have to move before we fall off the board?


No animals were harmed in this video either.

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. +1 ... and two thoughts ...

First, Democrats are largely NOT moving any further right-ward than the electorate is voting (despite what DU says); and, 2,

Politics doesn't reward losers.

But anonymous political message boards do, so here we sit.

[Doctor_J]

20. 2008 and 2010 would seem to contradict your theory

2008 they ran away from Republicans & won big. 2009-2010 they caved in, got trounced. And regardless, if they run and govern like Reaganites, the country is going to continue to plummet to 3rd world status, disaffecting more and more potential voters. So that strategy simply cannot work over any amount of time.

[Rex]

22. Yeah but it is a winning strategy to get republicans elected, oh I thought that is what

the poster you are replying to wanted. My bad, I guess they replied on the wrong message board by mistake.

[Cosmocat]

30. They didn't "run away from republican's" in 2008

they ran against Bush, and there is a really big difference in those two things.

You want to make is into some kind of nuanced decision by our electorate, and that is giving it FAR too much credit.

The fact is, where we are today, this country is reactive, not thoughtful, when it votes.

People don't bother to vote unless they are emotional - angry in specific.

AND, they critical mass needed to come out ahead at the end of the night most often lies in putting into people's heads that there is something REALLY, REALLY bad they need to vote AGAINST.

I think BiBi's win highlights this. He was in trouble, and went full bore into what republicans here do, and he pulled it out.

NOW, and this is the important thing.

What YOU AND ME know to be the things we need to vote against is VASTLY different from what the rest of the country thinks we need to vote against.

And, the right has a DECIDED advantage in that they sell hatred and division vs us wanting things to be better.

End, of that day, the first wins out far more often than the second in the world we live in today.

I live in a slightly leaning conservative area. MANY of my friends and acquaintances are republicans. A LOT of really, really, truly good people.

But, be it guns, be it gays, be it whatever, they see an evil liberal boogyman.

FURTHER, there are a lot of people I know who are not full republicans, who in fact MOSTLY would see things the way we see things, who STILL end up thinking or voting like republican's because of one stupid thing, here or there.

It is exasperating, seeing people who, for example, don't like how gay people are demonized, voting R when they vote because democrats just want to tax and spend ...

NOW, end of the day, you are correct.

It just is not as simple was you might think.

It isn't really the fault of the elected officials EITHER WAY.

It is the fault of the people who show up, or don't show up, at the voting booths.

It may seem trite, but we are getting what we want ...

[riqster]

38. Yep. America has the society it asked for.

[rpannier]

24. And yet their numbers continue to dwindle

When you look like a Repub, Talk like a Repub and Act like one... the voters for the Repub, not the guy wearing the faded Halloween costume of a Repub

[Cosmocat]

28. This is mostly true

We are in a heck of a box ...

Democrats are for sure, spineless and gutless.

But, what we see REPEATEDLY is either full, or in components, the people of this country buying republican bullshit.

Ds in VERY liberal areas can be populist democrats.

But, in any tossup area, the republican bullshit wins out more often than not, by a pretty wide margin.

[whathehell]

34. Actually, blue Dogs are frequently the first to be voted out.

Even Harry Truman advised Democrats not to act/vote like Republicans,

as they are so much better at it.

[daleanime]

11. +1

[Enthusiast]

17. +1 an entire shit load.

[Skittles]

19. they are being led there

[blackspade]

29. Exactly.

[99Forever]

32. Exactly.

Same players, same bullshit.

The only real difference is the speed at which they hose you.

[HereSince1628]

6. Well I think I see what he did there...

[FairWinds]

9. Correct . . It's the difference between . .

the bad and the horrible.
And NO, the American people are not enthralled by the long-dead Reagan.
They are progressive on nearly all issues - from financial regulation, to
wages & working conditions, to saving the Postal Service, and on an on.
Dems LOSE when they go GOP-lite.

[jwirr]

10. Sorry but that does not make sense to me. If I hate GOP-lite why would I vote GOP anything?

I think that it is more that we have become so brainwashed that we don't know what we are doing until it is too late.

[1StrongBlackMan]

14. And yet, the American people VOTE for

politicians that are conservative on nearly all (none social issues) ... financial regulation, to
wages & working conditions, to saving the Postal Service, and on an on.

[zeemike]

23. No they don't vote when there is no clear choice.

And that is why we lose...we don't offer it to them.
But the right does vote because there IS a clear choice for them.
When Obama promised us change there was a large turnout, and we won big at the polls...when that change never happened they stay home...it is that simple.
The only voter base that is disappointed is ours.

[bullsnarfle]

36. Bingo.

When given a choice between crap or crappier, folks just don't see why they should even bother.

In our local city council race here, the so-called "democratic" candidate for my district is an anti-choice, gay-hating, Christian fanatic nut cake. I would rather cut my arm off with a rusty butter knife than vote for her. Same for her ultra-right-wing opponent, of course.

I feel that many of us in this district have been disenfranchised.

[zeemike]

39. And there are choices like that all over the country.

The Dems have sold us on the idea that they need to be right to get elected...and so they field tweedledum against tweedle dee...and that gives the right a chance to pick the authentic right winger...because the rest have no choice.

[myrna minx]

37. Because Dems allow the republicans to frame the debate from the faulty

economic premise of free trade and trickle down economics. When the debate in only about how best to apply the proven failure of Straussian and Friedman principles, we'll lose every time. When we frame the debate from tried and true Keynesien economics, we win over voters because it makes sense and "lifts all boats" so to speak.

[PatrynXX]

15. seriously

wanna start chopping so called Republicans out of the GOP. Read the bible. the new book for most. Start quoting Jesus... Jesus said specifically to PAY the tax man..... plenty of other lessons Jesus taught that Republicans seemed to have forgotten. They are mostly right wing Jews. not Christian. does this offend someone. possibly but thats how I see it. and my cousin is Jewish basically left wing. I'd guess showing the middle class and the poor in a 2 minute ad and then showing depending on what channel it's on (fox) a white Jesus wear a tear falling down his fast... might created a bit of a stir. First Democrat who wants to risk this gets my vote off hand. If Hillary does it by golly I'm voting even though I said I wouldn't but only that..

[LiberalLovinLug]

16. Sure there is still a difference

The Teapublicans have moved way right

But the Democrats just follow and take up the space

[rhett o rick]

18. Mr. Reich is right on with regard to the "extreme and brazen" Republicons, but

the business about someone thinking the two parties are the same is a strawman. As the Republicon Party goes over the cliff, the smart money (e.g., Goldman-Sachs) has moved to backing Conservative Democrats that support Wall Street, a non-controlled NSA/CIA Security State, and Neocon wars.

[YOHABLO]

21. All because we have NO campaign finance regulations anymore. We have KOCH-A-KOLA.

[madokie]

25. Wasn't he a big part of the why of the Clinton Surpluses?

[gregcrawford]

26. Teapublicans have systematically...

... weeded out anyone even remotely capable of critical thought and replaced them with drones from the hive. They have zero interest in governing, rebuilding infrastructure, or, indeed, rebuilding anything at all. Like psychotic kindergartners, they only want to destroy for the pure malicious pleasure of watching decent people recoil in utter horror. Comparisons to Boko Haram are not totally without merit; The Republicans just make sure they are Six Degrees of Dick Cheney removed from the death and despair caused by their diseased policies.

[liberal N proud]

27. As usual, he nails it!

[RiverLover]

31. Democrats aren't as bad, but we cede WAY too much to RW thinking, ie, Trickle down Lite~

...“This is what progressives have done for generations, is that we ceded to the other side that the rich are job creators; we ceded to the other side that less regulation equals more growth; we ceded to the other side that if wages go up, then employment goal go down. And then we wonder and complain about the policies that flow naturally and logically from that set of baseline assumptions. That’s the problem,” he said—a failure to contest the basic framework of economic thought. Hanauer has challenged that framework, with what he calls “middle-out economics”, which was the subject of the summer 2013 issue of Democracy.

He made the same point again, about the failure to contest fundamentals, with a slightly different emphasis and explanation. “The problem with our politics is President Obama and the people who surround him, don’t represent an alternative to trickle down economics, they are trickle-down-lite,” Hanauer told me. “They’re sort of kinder-and-gentler trickle-down economics. They can talk a little bit about the importance of the middle class, but, in my opinion, they haven’t quite seen clearly that they’ve gotten cause-and-effect reversed. They still think that a thriving middle class is an effect of growth, a consequence of growth, and the truth is in a technological, modern economy, a thriving middle class is the cause of growth….

The middle class creates rich people, not the other way around.”

This used to be well-understood by everyone. During America’s long post-World War II boom, the incomes of all levels growing approximately equally—though slightly slower at the very top. “That’s how you sustain virtuous cycle of increasing returns which capitalism can be. Capitalism can be constructed in a way..."

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/19/the_1_percent_rigged_everything_why_no_one_can_end_ronald_reagans_dead_wrong_voodoo_economics/

[sendero]

33. Oh there's a difference...

.... just not enough to give a shit about. Democrats = death by a thousand cuts, Republicans = more or less sudden death.

Ya'll might think the choice is clear, I do not. Some of us would prefer to just get it over with and commence with rebuilding.

[libodem]

35. Boy Howdy!

[sulphurdunn]

40. I always hold my nose and vote Dem.

But, if the repugs keep moving right and dragging the dems along with them, and the dems remain left of the repugs, they'll eventually be where the repugs are today, and I don't even want to imagine where the repugs will be.