While Education and Organizing is building the parts for a new engine the rest of the year.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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I don't honestly see why that would be the case. If they've already won, why bother changing?
If the right never wins, they move further left to collect more centrist votes. If the right moves more left, the left moves more left to differentiate themselves and appeal to the more progressive crowd that might otherwise vote green party or some other third party.
This has actually been happening for the last few decades but in the other direction. Left leaning voters not turning out for elections, partially because Dems have a history of suppressing exciting progressive candidates meant that Dems sought more centrists to compete with the right. Particularly after 5 of the 6 presidential elections went to Republicans between the late 60s and late 80s So they moved further right as a result. Both Clinton's, Obama and Biden are not progressive, they're barely left of center. The Democrat Party actively discourages progressivism, particularly in presidential candidates, to make them feel "safe" and "reasonable" to centrists. That shift to the right meant that the right has had to appeal more to the relative eccentrics on the right like anarcho-capitalist libertarians, the Christian nationalists, and the white nationalists. And not just at a presidential level but on every level even down to school boards. Thus our current status quo.
Not that Nixon, Reagan, or the Bushes were at all good people, but at the very least they didn't feel comfortable publically and openly appealing to bigotry and the dismantling of the federal government as a campaign tactic. That is no longer the case with the modern GOP.
That would be the theory, but it doesn’t seem to actually play out in practice. Look at the UK, where worsening performance in recent elections and drastically worse polling at present is leading to their right wing doubling down and being upset that their leader’s policies aren’t right-wing enough.
Or Australia, where at the last election our right-wing had its moderates absolutely wiped out by even more moderate independents (and in some cases, by proper progressives). There are no prominent moderates left in their parliamentary party. As a result, the people who are left are the right wing of the party, and they have selected as their leader a rabid tough-line conservative.
To move the Overton window.
As we see with the Republicans eating themselves, there will always be opportunists looking to take down their own and fill the Gap. But we can use that to our advantage to get the legislation we actually want. But we kind of have to take care of the crazies before we can 100% focus on fixing our house.
That didn't exactly answer the question. If Democrats consistently get all the power, why would they bother changing? Don't they already have what they want?
Speaking for myself, voting for down ballot candidates is the first step towards changing a party. My home city secured a progressive majority in 2022, and previous elected progressives are now running for higher offices. It's always a process, and when done right provides better changes for the years to come.
Maybe we can ask that when they actually do get all the power, because they've consistently lacked the majority needed to do any worthwhile changes.
Dems haven't bothered changing even when they lose power. Part of the reason we are in this mess. They most go left or wither on the blue dog vine.
Democrats aren't a monolithic entity that wants to gorge itself on power and then sit around fat and happy. It's a bunch of competing politicians who are constantly at risk of losing their seat - if not to Republicans, then, as in Cali, to fellow Democrats who propose a different line.