Wtf is the Overton Window?

Not really....he wants to give 99% of the top 1% a big tax break and massively increase government spending on healthcare. You can reject it outright without knowing anything else.

trump is meeting with putin this weekend in Hamburg.

Gallup: TRUMP Approval Ratings Leading Up To 2016 Election

Looks like approval ratings for TRUMP were actually worse than they are now leading up to the election. Certainly no better than today and he won. Yes HRCs were nothing to be proud of. TRUMP never has had high approval ratings.

Maybe Bernie should have been the candidate instead of HRC to give the Dems their best shot. The lesson for the Dems should be obvious I would think.

The range of "acceptable" opinions/ policy considerations. If someone says "that wouldn't work here", "that's a political non starter", etc. it's outside the window.

Succinctlly and effectively where the center is politically in a given time period. Microbet is asserting the center has shifted to the right compared to say 25 years ago. Almost certainly that is wrong Certainly it is wrong over the last 100 years.

Sadly, getting the most votes only matters in primaries

I think it depends on the issue. Social stuff like gay marriage has certainly shifted left. Economic and military issues have shifted right.

This is what I was going to say. It obviously depends on the issue, and depending on the issue, it may also depend on whether you cherry pick the endpoints to prove your point.

The midpoint on issues like immigration tends to swing back and forth. The midpoint on issues like tolerance for police violence tends to move only in one direction, even if the movement is imperceptibly slow at times.

Not true at all for economic issues. Like 80+% of the country prefers Obamacare redistribution to Bush era healthcare status quo. I would bet against the republicans being able to pass W style tax cuts, granted that may be more related to competence than a leftward policy shift.

I know I'm turning into the resident Maoist or something but the meta political evolution of the last 30-50 years probably isn't best understood on the left-right scale. It's ultimately been a huge victory for capitalism here and globally, which has both buoyed the interests of market orthodox types AND the undermined traditional social order. Both the left and right have things to celebrate and lament; it's been mostly a 50 year stretch of run-good for capitalism.

Consider the unwinding of the Soviet Union, the migration of China from communism to state-sponsored capitalism, the opening of China and India to foreign investment, and the evolution of politics in the west: in cases were popular perception are that things moved "left" on social issues like political civil rights for racial minorities and things like the gay rights movement, or feminism -- all of those were in service to opening up markets and freeing untapped fountains of consumers and/or labor. Most of the move 'left' globally has ultimately been in service to producers, owners of wealth/capital, and management classes. I praise those outcomes on the whole where more statutory rights have been afforded to gays, or women are participating more in the economy. But we should recognize the reality for what it is. I thought OAFK had a great post recently on the forum in the last two days that much of the social libertarianism was essentially prodded along by marketers and advertisers, and whatever organic energy behind those movements quickly co-opted.

shots fired!

I think generally speaking the standard of living in China and India has risen over the last 25 years with globalization. Not sure about African nations. Admittedly I'm not up on Asian politics but I'm going to guess that from a human rights standpoint, things have gotten a lot better. Definitely could be wrong.

This is a bit of fundamental attribution error though. LBJ had control of both houses of congress throughout his presidency, and usually with filibuster-proof majorities. Neither Clinton nor Obama had that kind of luxury, but both of them pushed progressive healthcare legislation while they had legislative majorities (and may have lost them because of it). I do think you are correct that Democrats need more of a bare-knuckled approach to politics, but it's not realistic to assume they can achieve miracles through it. Mostly where they need to show some spine is by retaliating against the GOP over norm-breaking rather than "going high" or some bull****. And not by snubbing their parties.

Sure, fine. I simply want to reiterate I would totally be fine with Schumer or any Democrat sharing the same air and eating off of the same hors d'oeuvre tray as a Koch or a Kushner if they weren't inept. But they are inept. But then it's their ineffectiveness strikes me as far more important to solve rather than who they socialize with. I grant the optics are bad, but it's sort of like saying the Grizzlies biggest problem is how much they overpaid for Chandler Parsons last year giving him a max contract, the optics of splashing around in free agency last year really hurt them trying to recruit other big FA and get them to come to Memphis for lesser deals now.

Well, that's one way to look at the problem. The other more critical problem is probably that Chandler Parsons sucks at basketball and Memphis has to pay him.

Grunching here, but this is an important point, imo. I'd be willing to bet Mitch McConnell wasnt ever caught dead rubbing elbows with Soros or Cecil Richards while they were in the minority.

I think many Democrats may secretly want the repeal Obamacare to pass as a separate bill because that allows them to vote yes on a compromise with moderate Republicans since they can, in the case of a previous repeal, deny that that voted to repeal Obamacare because it was already done.

Gotta ask, who is a better alternative as Minority Leader than Schumer?

Democrat Senators

Dick Durbin, Feinstein, Warner?

I don't know about McConnell specifically (although I seem to recall that he is quite friendly with Biden), but there are numerous historical examples of actual, across-the-aisle friendships that extended well beyond "rubbing elbows" at some big party.

Sure, though I think it's important not to confuse what liberals "should" do and what they actually "will" do.

Nominating Hillary is a pretty good example of this. Yeah, people obviously should have voted for her over Trump. But many didn't precisely because of the flaws you cited.

I don't think you're going to convince vast swaths of liberals to stop caring about character. What you have more control over is nominating people who are more likely to win elections.

Democrats shouldn't be friendly with Republicans if they think that they are trying to murder poor people. And Republicans shouldn't be friends with Democrats if they think they are allowing unborn babies to be murdered.

But they can be friendly if they don't really think those things of the other side but are just saying it for their own benefit.

That's not a secret at all. Of course the replacement bill will be better for dems if you lose the hard right and fill in the holes with centrists democrats. Thats what they would do if Obamacare was actually in trouble on its own.

Not enough Republicans will sign on unless the replacement is cruel
If it's cruel then Democrats are incentivized to hold out so GOP gets all the blame

This is silly.

Republicans don't want to be cruel. It's simply and unavoidable byproduct of their primary policy goal which is eliminating taxes on the rich. They are then forced to be cruel to other sectors.

A guide to defending democracy,


https://qz.com/846940/a-yale-history...mp-presidency/