Help me argue against someone who says Dems need to move right

[rockymountaindem]

I go to school in Canada, where a surprising amount of people are very interested in US politics. Now, I was talking/arguing with a good Canadian friend about the future of the Democratic party. She said we have trouble winning because the US is a right-wing conservative country where left-wing messages have little appeal (this is a common misconception among Canadians, which I think is perpetuated by the Canadian media but that's another story). I said the following when I could get a word in edgewise:

1) Left-wing ideology is not dead in America. For example, I countered her claim that "Americans disapprove of abortion" by saying that polls show 65% of Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade. In addition, the polls show that Americans support many leftist policies.

2) She said Americans aren't one-issue voters, therefore the Democratic message must have no appeal at all because why would people vote against their economic interest just on abortion? I assured her this was the case. I told her that coming from Colorado, I've seen those people who do just that; she hasn't. She refused to believe me.

3) She then said that Democrats are losing their base, which she defined as rural farmers. I said that's not the case, as people who earned less than 35K per year voted strongly for Kerry. I told her that the base demographic is the blue-collar worker and those who depend on them, not rural farmers. The target demographic is surburbanites, not farmers. I told her to look at places like Flint and Cleveland to see where the Democratic strategy and policies pay off. She just shut that out and acted like our failure to win Kansas and Nebraska represents a wholesale rejection of Democratic policies nationwide. She also said, "oh, like Michigan matters". I reminded her that it's a close state with a lot more electoral votes than Kansas and that winning there is an important thing for Democrats. I also noted that Missouri was close in the last election thanks to our support in KC and St. Louis on a similar platform.

I then reminded her of the fact that many people who tacitly support things like Roe v. Wade don't vote, while it's vocal opponents always do. In addition, I pointed out the fact that Dems are often outspent 2 to 1, and that we're just addressing that problem. Lastly, I explained about RW presence in the media, and used the cancellation of Phil Donohue's show on MSNBC as an example. I said that despite a lot of disadvantages, we still do pretty well.

She just refused to believe any of this, and concluded that Democrats need to adopt Republican policies if we want to win. Is there anything I could have left out?

[wryter2000]

1. If she refused to believe that

There's probably no point pursuing it further, if she's going to discount everything you say.

[400Years]

2. she sounds like an idiot

You can lead a horse to water...

[rockymountaindem]

4. Oh, she's not an idiot

She's a Canadian conservative who sees things through that lens. But she claims to support the American left and she definately doesn't like Republicans. I do think, however, that a lot of university students here in Canada don't really know about as much as they think they do about US politics.

[400Years]

8. it is just that "idiots" always dismiss anything that doesn't "fit"

It sounds like she doesn't want to ingest any information that contradicts here point of view. If someone won't even acknowledge certain facts how can you debate anything with them?

[Clark2008]

3. Sounds like your friend knows as little about the US

as most US citizens know about Canada.

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. Well, the simple truth is that your friend is obviously completely

unaware that the Democrats won the election in a landslide but were defrauded of the presidency, seats in Congress, the Senate, etc; and, indeed, it has been suggested that the last lawfully-elected Republican President might well have been Nixon. But be that as it may, it is certain that Kerry won the election very handsomely. How is it you don't know that, when you are a DUer?

[blm]

6. She's been watching too much of CNN's Value Voters segments where they

totally misrepresent the actual will of the American people while they LECTURE on how the country is moving rightward based on religious values.

Totally manufactured issue.

[snowbear]

7. Simple solution: Send her here.

We'll help you set her straight.

[tocqueville]

9. your friend is mostly right (except for the solution)

The US is in general a right wing country for historical reasons

The average standpoints of the US democratic party would be considered as belonging to the center-right in Europe

It you intake European center-right standpoints and make ANY "US" political on-line test about your political colour, you get automatically classed as a "statist" or a "socialist". Just breathe that society should take care of OR EVEN REGULATE collective necessities like transportation, production of power, education and basic medical facilities - not to talk about welfare, the average American will class you as a commie.

1) pro-abortion is not "left-wing" ideology. It's a basic human/woman right and can be defended from different standpoints. Most of European legislations are in practice more restrictive than the US one (specially after the 4th month). It has to do with a completely different approach to the matter where abortion is MOSTLY a matter of SOCIETY, not a "private" issue. Besides it's regulated in voted law, not by judicial interpretation of penumbral rights in a 230 years old constitution. In the US abortion isn't a right-left issue, it's mostly a religious issue.

2) Most voters in most countries are "one-issue voters". A focused matter for a special election can make people vote against their own interest. For the reason that people don't see the relation between several different issues. Anyway it has nothing to do with the left-right scale.

3) the Democrats were originally a Dixie party, and it's very difficult to win an election without a southern base with the actual system. The question is if the actual cheating in key states and the voting methods (electronic) + the suppression of black vote in key sectors is more important than the blue or red base.

Her conclusion is wrong : Democrats must show that their solutions are the opposite of the traditional right-wing solutions. But for that Americans have to understand it through practical experience, which will be the failure of Republican politics on the internal level. When the US will suffer a new depression like in the thirties, which is a matter of time, they'll find out that to the difference with Europe, Canada and New-Zealand, there is no safety net or parachute. Only kind words of a preacher of a better life in another world...

then they'll vote Democrat.

[eallen]

10. The Democratic base is in the cities.

Anyone who doesn't believe that should look at a red-blue map of which counties went for Kerry rather than Bush in 2004. Virtually every large city went for Kerry. The countryside belonged to Bush.

[Peace Patriot]

11. 80% of the votes in the 2004 election were tabulated by two far rightwing

Bushite corporations--Diebold and ES&S--using 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it. Late on election day, 2004, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies then ALTERED their own exit polls (Kerry won), on everybody's TV screens, to FIT the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won)--thus denying the American people major evidence of election fraud, and squelching protests and investigations (the worse journalistic crime I have ever witnessed).

That's all you need to know. It's not about message. It's about power.

Your friend is completely wrong about the American people. If you look at the issue polls, you will find a great progressive American majority, which disagrees with every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70% range. It's astonishing--and rarely reported, and never discussed, in the corporate monopoly press (even though some of them are their own polls). You name it. The Iraq war. Torture policy. Social Security. The deficit. Women's rights. Bush's views are distinctly MINORITY views (30% to 40%), as they always have been. But they are given a big trumpet, by these monopolistic news organizations, to broadcast those views way out of proportion to their numbers, thus creating the ILLUSION that Americans have somehow gone rightwing and become warmongers and fascists. It's not true.

Even some leftists (the true majority) get fooled. We should be very careful to distinguish between reality (what Americans really think) and what I call "reality-2" (what the corporate news monopolies portray us as thinking, and what they want to convince us to think). Two very different things.

It's quite heartening to me, that the American people have NOT bought Bush's lies or his fascist policies, despite relentless propaganda. The American people are the most intensely propagandized people on earth, outside of, say, North Korea. Yet we are sticking to our ethical principles, our sense of justice, our progressive views, our desire for peace and for diplomatic solutions, and for good government, and are actually quite savvy and well-informed, for all the intense effort to hoodwink us, on every hand, on almost all stations, in almost every newspaper, 24/7, day in, day out. Kudos to us! Now let's straighten out our voting system, and get on with it!

(Note: The one thing Americans have not been savvy about is the takeover of our election system by rightwing corporations, using secret programming code--probably because it happened so recently, and under the radar. It's gone virtually unreported, and is just getting known, via the internet and word of mouth. Also, the Democratic Party leadership seems to be complicit--some of them--or too afraid to object. Getting anthraxed and having Senators' planes fall out of the air for no reason would certainly give people pause, who thought of objecting. The votes on this boondoggle for Bush's buds in the electronics industry occurred right during that period. I don't forgive the Dems for this, but I do see that there are understandable reasons. There is also putrid corruption of state/local election officials--the ones who could refuse to buy these fraudulent election systems. We obviously need a BIG BROOM, and the Repubs are not the only ones who need to clean house!)

[Stevepol]

13. Add that Kerry won the election according to the exit polls by 3%

or 5M votes, and exit polls today are FAR MORE ACCURATE than electronic voting machines in indicating the real results of elections.

Also add that Max Cleland in GA and Mondale in MN at least would have won election to Congress if the vote had been counted fairly (not by ES&S and Diebold), and maybe several other reps and Sens.

As you may have said yourself, Peace Patriot, the American people are not stupid; they're just disenfranchised.

[Donna Zen]

12. The "center" is defined by the outer arms

A move to the right by the Democrats (a strategy that the DLC has been pursuing for sometime now) only succeeds in moving the center further to the right. A tug to the left, moves the center to the left. It is much easier to run on "central" position that is inclusive of Democratic strengths if the center is defined by a spectrum that includes progressive positions.

Moving right will only negate progressive politics and further alienate the average voter. Why vote for a "fake" republican when one can have the real thing? We must define the center, not the loony right, or the American people will suffer.

[Mountainman]

14. Just think of the lemmings. If all of the politicos in the US wanted to

jump to their deaths, why does that me we should do like wise?