When are Democrats going to stop being Republican Lite?

[cyborg1966]

It started with Bill Clinton and the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council.

My best guess is that the Reagan and Bush I years pushed this country so far to the right that anything left of Ayn Rand economically and Jerry Falwell socially, wrapped in God, Guns and the Flag, was considered to be practically Marxist/Leninist. Witness all the far right types throwing the accusations of Obama being "Marxist," "Communist," etc. when they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

The DLC quite likely figured they had to "downplay" traditional Democratic issues like health care and workers' rights, and distance themselves from the unions that had got busted during the Reagan-Bush I years to be "electable." Hence, we got "Democrats" like Evan Bayh (I'm originally from Indiana and remember him well as both Governor and Senator...nice guy but had to play it very, very safe in ultraconservative Indiana) and the late Paul Tsongas, not to mention Bill Clinton (whom I voted for twice).

A lot of people lost respect for Clinton when he had his fling with Monica Lewinsky. I lost a great deal of respect for him when he started parrotting Newt Gingrich with the "the era of big government is over" statement. To give him credit, and he does deserve it, he served as a check on putative-Prime Minister Gingrich steamrolling his pain-and-suffering agenda through.

Now, Barack Obama has come from the same school of thought, though of course to the far right (the actual "political centre") he might as well be waving a copy of Mao's Little Red Book, and everything he's done is "socialism."

Have Democrats been so cowed into timidity since Reagan, aided by the unrelenting, withering blasts of bullshit from talk radio and Fux Noise, that they have abandoned the principles of FDR, JFK or even Harry Truman?

[creon]

1. When

When there is a majority of progressives in the House and Senate.

That means: 218 progessives in the HoR
51 progressive Senators.


That is when you will get progressive legislation passed. Not before.

[kctim]

2. Probably when

progressives face the fact that they are NOT the center and that EVERYBODY to the right of them are NOT Republicans.

[MisterP]

3. when people stop voting for candidate N no matter how bad they are

because they're in the right party

[OHdem10]

4. The DLC, NEW DEMOCRATS run the Party. I have no idea

what will change this.

If you noticed the minute Obama entered the WH and
started making appointments--DLC rules.

[Steely_Dan]

5. I Think What Is Interesting...

is that so many "Democrats" under a certain age have no concept of what a real Dem president is like. All they have to go on is Clinton. He was far from a progressive leader. The goal posts for younger Dems are not the same for the rest of us. This does not bode well for the future of our party.

-P

[Recursion]

7. Some of us whippersnappers feel that from the other side

ie, that some older progressives can't seem to face the reality of how much more conservative the country is now than it was back in their day, and that we have to work with what we have and take what we can get.

[glitch]

8. We see that play out all the time here.

Sad, and not just for our party.

[Recursion]

6. When voters stop rewarding it (nt)

[mstinamotorcity]

9. We need to

stop doing as they do and do as we are the difference!!!! If we offer nothing different then how are we to make anyone see the Democratic Party as the party of CHANGE.