Democratic leaders play a ridiculous blame game with progressives (WaPo)

[bluestateboomer]

November 8, 2020 at 12:50 p.m. PST
Opinion by
James Downie

If a football coach went into a game saying “we’ll rely on passing the ball,” executed that strategy, lost the game, then blamed the loss on running the ball, everyone would laugh at that coach. And yet that’s exactly the approach Democratic moderates are taking after Tuesday’s disappointing House and Senate results: Reject progressives’ suggestions, then blame those suggestions anyway for their failures.

Remember, from the Democratic primary onward, party leaders warned against running on Medicare-for-all, a Green New Deal and other progressive ideas. That approach, they said, would lead Democrats to lose states such as Florida. (About that…) Instead, Democrats went small, focusing on saving the Affordable Care Act and providing a check on President Trump.

But after the party lost House seats and failed to retake the Senate, the knives are out for the left anyway. On a House
Democrats conference call on Thursday, party leaders and moderates blamed their failures on progressives. Majority Whip James E. Clyburn of South Carolina warned against running on defunding the police or socialized medicine. (Since 2007, Clyburn has collected more than $1.2 million from pharmaceutical PACs, among the most of anyone in Congress.) The attacks were best summed up by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.): “We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. … We lost good members because of that.”

-Snip-

Spanberger’s view was echoed by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on “Meet the Press”: “I don’t think the American people want to sign up for the Green New Deal. … I don’t think they’re interested in Medicare-for-all or higher taxes that would slow down the economy.” But this diagnosis is at odds with the numbers. A near-majority of voters in swing districts supported the Green New Deal. Fifty-three percent of Americans support Medicare-for-all (and 70 percent support a public option). In exit polls, 57 percent of voters expressed support for Black Lives Matter. In Florida, while moderate Democrats up and down the ticket fell flat, voters passed the $15 minimum wage that the left has been pushing for years. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) observed, every swing-district House Democrat who co-sponsored Medicare-for-all kept their seat.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/08/democratic-leaders-play-ridiculous-blame-game-with-progressives/

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

1. Yep. Rs paint Ds as Socialist Commie Antifa Devils

no matter what we do, and we lose the people who support the New Green Deal, universal healthcare, etc, when we don't make it clear were fighting for them.

We need to go big D, and bring in more new D voters. Can we at least try that, please?

[TigressDem]

2. The BLAME GAME needs to STOP on all sides.

BUT there is a difference between looking at what strategies may work and building ourselves a path to get what we want without being "Labeled" by the REICH wing as one thing or another.

RE PAIR Health Care ... it can start with a MASH effort at saving ACA and go farther as we get more power.

Right now Priority 1 is dealing with COVID so we HAVE the people alive when the next vote comes around. It's no good if rethugs kill off enough DEMS to really decimate the vote.

WHEN we fight among ourselves instead of negotiate and get as much progressive agendas through as possible, we do the work of the rethugs by killing off our own.

WE can MODIFY the Green New Deal with Public Works programs that get around a deadlocked congress by having Prez work with Govs and Mayors to put people to work, give them Tiny Homes or Construction Container Homes to work onsite and be monitored for COVID to solve many problems at once without having to get Congress to pull the rethugs heads out of tRumps arse.

ACO and all other progressives could support this as a way to get their own agendas moving.

Progressive ideas can probably work best at the grassroots level and once the model for change is shown to be successful, then good luck to the rethugs at keeping that stuff away from the people.

Putting people back to work was the turning point after the great depression and we are about as in need of major change now as they were then, but we also have to deal with Covid and crazy tRumpies trying to start a civil war.

WE HAVE TO KEEP TOGETHER AND REMAIN FOCUSED ON DOING WHAT WE CAN.....


AND RIGHT NOW WE ALSO HAVEN'T OFFICIALLY GOTTEN JOE'S FOOT INTO THE DOOR OF THE WHITE HOUSE and Dumps stuff out on the front lawn.

INFIGHTING CAN WAIT.

MAYBE it never has to fully start.

[beastie boy]

3. What a lameass sports analogy!

How about this one: a football coach tells the team to play a passing game, and a halfback decides he knows better and plays a running game. And the team loses.

BTW, we won.

[lagomorph777]

4. WaPo plays ridiculous blame game with Dems.

Dems are going to work this out, the minute we recognize we are on the same side of 95% of all issues. Including the big one: American Democracy.