The graph shows that since 1995 ('94 election), the Republicans have controlled the Congress for 18 years out of 22. The graph is empirical disconfirmation of the entire underpinning of your stance here. There is no actual argument to be had here, it's a question of you realising that you have nothing left to threaten the left with. Your way doesn't win, it's as simple as that.

I don't care what would have happened if Sanders won. I wasn't rooting for Sanders, I was rooting for Clinton. You and Max seem determined to keep re-living the Democratic primary. Snap out of it.

More empty threats. I'm not scared of a GOP tidal wave, because that's exactly what your ****ty policies have produced. Again, you are not the new kid on the block, here. You're not doing a Kramer-slide into the room and wowing us with this wild new pragmatic centrism kick, dig it, hepcats. Your way has been tried repeatedly and it has repeatedly failed.

First of all, GTFO with this "the most progressive candidates" crap. Just regular progressive will do fine. But moving on: why are there more Democrats than Republicans in a right-of-centre country, bud? Why does single-payer poll so well, pal? Why is modest gun control legislation so popular, frienderino? Why do tax increases on the wealthy have such widespread support, my brother from another mother?

Paul - you're at the point where you're parroting Newt Gingrich talking-points to defend a policy platform that lost to Donald Trump. You need to have a ****ing word with yourself, man.

Not entirely.

This country works on gradual change over sweeping changes. Hillary's college plan might have been able to enter discussion in congress unlike Sander's college plan that R's would immediately vilify and have a bunch of tard screaming stuff about socialism.

Unless there's some reason to believe left wingers, be they Sanders progressives or generic Democrats, can win the White House and both the House and Senate all at once, people need to accept really big changes like UHC and college being paid by a collective are long term goals.

I'm not trying to do anything you worthless troll.

Sanders wasn't a new kid on the block either. Nader lost Gore an election on a progressive platform. So don't sit there and pretend progressives are something new and shiny. Progressives helped create an environment that led to two wars and have the audacity to act like virgins almost two decades later.

You and other progressives are the ones who are bull****ting.

There are no centrist Republicans. The real Republicans would call anything Hillary proposed socialist, just like they did with Obama. I wouldn't matter one bit how much compromise was written into it.

There is however a segment of the country who liberals may think are selfish bad people and think that both parties are equally bad or are the hated people who are indifferent and didn't vote who may well be receptive to Democrats who are honest about what they want and don't pander to populism in between unspeakably exclusive fund raisers.

looool so the iraq and afghanistan wars are progressives' fault?

you are ****ing unhinged

Uh, yes, to some degree they are at fault when they helped put Bush in office with dreams of Utopia. The left should know better than to divide itself into factions.

If I am unhinged, you're blind.

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...n=2&vote=00237

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml

you dont make any sense paul

but yea clearly the best play is for the center left to keep acting in good faith, enabling and compromising with republicans because surely the favor will be paid back in due time and THEN the progressive agenda will see some progress

Hillary couldn't beat a fascist cheeto and that's all Bernie's fault, nevermind the fact that 80-90% of the Berniebros voted for Hillary.

Actually you're determined to make us relive the general. I'm fine with just doing the same thing.....you don't suddenly need to think exactly like me for the dems to have a shot.

That isn't my position at all. But by all means keep on being dishonest.

Fun fact: this was only narrowly beaten out by "A Better Deal".



'Nader sunk Gore' is both debatable and irrelevant if true. You can start preaching this Original Sin of Progressivism doctrine once I start my third-party run. The rest is like, Jesus Christ, man, your ****ing mind is dissolving before my eyes.

Zing!

Bill Clinton only became POTUS because a god damned third party libertarian conservative took 19 ****ing percent of the vote.

Obama won on the very Utopian Dream that you're talking about.

That the centrists can't afford to lose 2% of the left is their fault.

You use more words than him, but you post the same way Ikes does.

Progressives outside Cali and a few places can't win period. I'm not sure how hard that is to realize.

All you do is talk about the way I post. That's not because there's something special about the way I post, it's because you have nothing substantial to say here. Poor Paul D, got bitten by a radioactive Clinton and now ekes out his days as Centreman.

how is it not your position? you're saying (completely unsupported by anything other than some gut feels) that progressives should be less progressive if they want to win and enact change

Projecting much. You attack everyone and everything you disagree and show graphs that don't really matter one way or another. Like you did a few posts back. I mean, c'mon, post an explanation how progressives will win on a national level in this right-of-center country if you want to talk about substance.

It isn't unsupported. Progressives don't get elected on a national scale with any frequency that matters.

Having substantive things to say wasn't exactly my read on you based on our recent conversation. But just a wild guess here....its actually my fault when you do the exact thing you chastise others for doing.

Hillary won California and New York in the primaries. Bernie did win very progressive places like Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Vermont, but also Missouri, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, North Dakota.

The absolute gimme areas for centrist Democrats were the South, which is mostly Republican, and mid-Atlantic NYC, New Jersey, Connecticut fancy suit worshipping Wall Street area of the country. The only way the progressives do worse than the centrists in the general election is if the NYC-New Jersey rich Democrats defect to the Republican Party.

By Paul's logic, shouldn't it have been impossible for a far-right extremist like Trump to win a national election?

End tone-police brutality now.

The graph means nothing! No wait, it actually supports me! No wait, it's back to meaning nothing again!

They will win by running a platform consisting of policies very close to the very popular policies I mentioned to refute your Newt Gingrich soundbite. You ignored that part of the post for some crazy reason I can't quite put my finger on.

Just as long as we go with the safe bet, the sure shot, the silver bullet that is pragmatic centrism, Trump will never set foot in the White House.