Liberal Democracy

Liberal Democracy
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Thursday, July 26, 2018

Commentary Magazine: Noah Rothman: The New Left is Coming For You'

Source:Commentary Magazine- Socialists coming for you.
Source:The New Democrat

"The New Left is coming you:" when I read that I'm thinking they're coming for Republicans ( especially in the House ) and everyone who supports Donald Trump. This election cycle reminds me a lot of what happened in 2006 for Democrats and 2010 for Republicans. Even though in 2006 I don't believe activist Democrats hated President Bush and Republicans, as much as Tea Party Republicans hate Democrats and President Obama in 2009 and 2010 or Democrats hate President Trump and Republicans in 2017-18. That might be debatable, but I believe Democrats and Republicans are more divided now than they were 12 years ago.

Source: Left Forum via Twitter- The New Left Forum?
The last two years of the Bush Administration when President Bush had a Democratic Congress, they actually managed to pass some major legislation together. Including the bank bailouts and even a minimum wage increase. Whatever biparrtisnsahhip that we saw in the late 2000s is basically gone now. If a Democrat or Republican, is even caught by an activist in their party, being friendly to someone from the other side especially in Congress, they risk getting primaried in their next election. That wasn't the case in 2007-08.

And what I'm getting to is what happened in 2009-10 for the Republican Party, is now happening to the Democratic Party. The parents left the house to go on vacation basically to escape their 10 kids and left no one in charge at home and now you have the kids running the house. Using the couch as their trampoline, eating cake and cookies for dinner, skipping school, because their parents aren't home.

There is a vacuum of leadership in the Democratic Party now that was in the Republican Party 8-9 years ago and every Democrat that thinks highly of them self whether they're currently in office or not, believes they can be the leader of their party or at least a major player in the Democratic Party and is now making their play. Even if they have no government experience previously or don't even have much of a professional background at all. We saw activist lawyers, radio talk show hosts, bloggers, getting elected to the House of Representatives in 2010 and now we're seeing the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's of the world who was bartending in order to help herself pay her bills just a year ago, who'll probably be representing New York City in the House next year.

In 2010, you saw a whole wave of in some cases Conservative-Libertarian Tea Party Republicans. The Rand Paul's, Ron Johnson's, Mike Lee's of the world who got elected to the Senate and Justin Amash in the House. But you also saw some Far-Right Nationalist populist Republicans who make up a lot of the House so-called Freedom Caucus and represent the Donald Trump base, who oppose things like birthright citizenship, or voters being able to elect their own Senators instead of state legislatures, the Steve King's of the world in the House.

In 2018, what were going to see in the House of Representatives, assuming Democrats not just ran back the majority but do it in a big way and have 15-20 or more seat majority in the next Congress, is fringe base of the Democratic Party looking less fringe and more like mainstream Democrats. Not mainstream to the American electorate as a whole, but more normal inside the Democratic Party. With Socialists getting elected to the House especially in the Northeast, but in California as well, and perhaps in big Midwestern cities like Detroit, Chicago, perhaps in other cities.

And that the House Democratic Leadership will need these members to not just keep their majority, but to pass anything in the House. We already have a so-called Progressive Caucus in the House, who are actually Democratic Socialists ideologically like Maxine Waters and next year you might see this group actually use the label Democratic Socialist and be proud of it and not hide from it especially with all these Socialist Democrats getting elected to the House this year, assuming House Democrats win back the majority in 2018.

If you want to know why American voters be enlarge aren't fans of either the Democratic Party or Republican and why their approval ratings are so low and why 4-10 or more Americans voters now view themselves as Independents regardless of their political ideology, is because the parents aren't home in either party and have escaped from their children and are perhaps living it up in the Caribbean and perhaps living in hotels that don't allow children, while their children are left home by themselves. American voters, tend not to like the fringes of either side. The Nationalists on the Far-Right in the Republican Party and the Socialists on the Far-Left in the Democratic Party.