You know, sometimes the things that the Clinton supporters cry about are ridiculous. Like, today, I saw some Clinton people bashing Bernie for being willing to work with Trump on a $10 minimum wage. Why? Because he and his supporters refused to work with Clinton on $12. Oh my gosh, the hypocrisy! Or is it? Let's really look at this in light on some recent posts I did on party realignments and the overton window.
In American politics, we have two dominant parties, and most of the time, the two parties aren't equally dominant. I've discussed party realignments in which one party dominates the agenda and the other follows suit. During the 1930s-1970s, the democrats dominated the political scene while the democrats followed suit. During the 1980s to the present, the GOP has been the dominant agenda setting party. I think the Eisenhower and Clinton administrations really explain how this works well. We have the dominant democratic ideology causing the republicans to largely be in support of their agenda, where Eisenhower raised the minimum wage and defended social programs, while in the 1990s, the republicans pressured Clinton to push for things like welfare reform.
Since 2010, we've had a particularly bad crisis on the left. It's been bad before that, but in 2010, we saw the craziest, insurgent republican congress I've ever seen. They took over congress, and they held the nation hostage to push their agenda. The democrats did nothing to attempt to counter this. They would start from a weak, moderate bargaining position, and the republicans would start from a strong, extreme one. It's pretty clear what side of the fence got the better side of the deal.
This is actually one of the reasons I've been so far left in recent years. While I do believe in the ideals and goals and solutions I talk about, the right becoming so extreme and uncompromising has caused me to be extreme and uncompromising in order to beat them. To deal with the republican party, we don't need a moderate like Clinton to start from a wishy washy centrist position, we need a strong progressive who doesn't give a crap and is willing to be as uncompromising as the GOP if needed to protect their interests and push their agenda. No longer should the GOP be the dominant agenda setter in Washington, it's the democrats' turn. By party realignment, I mean a situation in which the political playing field favors the left. A playing field which, in democratic administrations advocate for the kinds of policies I talk about regularly on here, and during republican administrations, we see more moderate policies more in line of what the modern centrist democrat is for.
If Hillary went into the general with a moderate platform and won, that would be a loss for the left. Not only is the right uncompromising, but the left is selling out and becoming part of the problem too. And beyond that, there was the attitude problem. The dems didn't care. They gave us some minor concessions, yes, but they largely still governed from the center, against the tea party that shut them down and ensured they couldn't pass even that.
So what's different about Bernie compromising with Trump? Well, if Bernie can convince Trump, and the republicans, to adopt a $10 minimum wage, then guess what, we won. We just moved the overton window to the left. The republicans are in a situation where, given their rhetoric, they want to scrap the minimum wage altogether. And controlling the government, they have the power to do it, too. But if the GOP pushes for a mild increase, this means that's the limit to the spectrum of debate. Canning the minimum wage is off the table. The debate becomes not between a mild increase and trying to kill it off, but a nationwide discussion about how much we should increase it. Notice the shift in tone there. And notice how Obama, for example, advocated for about a $10 minimum wage just a few years ago. If Sanders can get the republicans to adopt an Obama like proposal when the GOP owns both congress and the presidency, once again, we won. We got what we want, and we got the opposition to give it to us.
As such, let me just say this. There's a huge difference between compromising with the other side, and disagreements within party. The other side is going to be the other side. They're conservatives. They're going to push for small(er) government, lower taxes, less regulations etc. Getting them into a position of agreeing with a moderate form of your agenda is a huge ideological victory. What is a problem is when your side of the aisle starts sounding like a moderate version of the other side, which is what Clinton sounded like to me. The democrats, from 1992 to the present, have basically been moderate republicans in my view. And this has enabled the right to further its own agenda without much to stop it. Politics is a tug of war between the left and the right. When the left refuses to tug and lets the right have the rope, they win. When the right refuses to tug and lets left have the rope, WE win. And that's why there's a huge difference between the left holding their own party to the fire for not being left wing enough, and the left getting the right to sign onto a moderate form of our agenda. One situation puts us in a position of strength, and the other in a position of weakness. If we, the left, can get the right to start sounding like us, then we win the game and get something closer to what we want.
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