Comment by PaulHoule
2 days ago
Back in the 1990s we complained that we couldn't get anything done because of "Blue Dog Democrats" [1], now we can't get anything done because there are only 10 of them.
For that matter, I moved to New York in 1990s when we had a Republican Senator Al D'Amato, a Republican Governor George Pataki, and Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani to be replaced by Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Personally I think one party rule is a bad thing because it makes it hard for us to vote out corrupt politicians.
I kinda blame the fact that, after zooming out to national or party level,
(Otoh this is mitigated by my observation that, e.g., liberal christians are recognized by the influential on the right to be prosocial-- and by themselves to be basically pro-institution.)
This is why you need a Mamdani to convince the center-left that it's not divisive to do so (& it's great that he's prioritizing the economic marginalization angle)
With Harris there is another mixed signal independent of her stage skills: swingvoters cannot decide if she is pro-or anti-institution (support from people like Powell-Jobs is counter-productive)
(Aside: let me know if that was confused)
As mentioned by Ezra Klein, Trump is a moderate-- my additional take is that he is intentionally so. Due to dark traits he knows to kayfabe extremism-- this provokes the divisive elements on the voting left, but the politically influential on the right do not see this as anti-institution
Trump is no moderate. He’s been a racist since the 80s when he advocated 5 black and Latino guys get Capital punishment for a crime they were later found not to have committed.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park...
He started the dog whistle campaign of Obama not being an American way before he thought about running for President.
He’s been pro tariff since the 90s also.
During his first run and his first time in office, the institutionalist wing of the Republican Party fought him tooth and nail.
Sorry! That was careless phrasing. Thank you for fuzzing the careless thinking behind it. It should have been
Is that more reasonable?
Imho Ezra Klein explains it better here https://youtu.be/Sx0J7dIlL7c?t=53m6s
(Is he going for "Leto I Atreides"?)