Alexandria Occasional-Cortex and the "Green New Deal".

[Gopher Gary]

There's a problem with compromise.

You can either dig your heels in or you can meet the other side halfway in order to get stuff done.

Imagine a situation where you have a nominally right-wing party and a nominally left-wing party. The left-wing part keeps on compromising and moving closer to the centre. The right-wing party responds by.... moving further and further to the right.

After a while the compromises of the left have actually dragged it so far to the right that it has gone way past the centre and is now further to the right than the right-wing party was when they got started. The right-wing party, on the other hand, has kept moving so far to the right that the rest of the world is starting to draw comparisons with the Third Reich.

The left-wing party is now in a situation where anyone who actually gives a fuck about working people, and wants billionaires to pay some tax, and who doesn't want to destroy the planet in pursuit of profits.... starts to look like an extremist even by the standards of the formerly left-wing party. And then when they start to finally dig their heels in over the more extreme measures that the far-right wants to implement.... they get accused of not wanting to compromise any more.

Some of this is happening in Sweden.

I think it's fantastic Sweden has official designated parties for their nazis and commies.  The US should do that too. Not only would it make them easier to identify in the government, but also otherwise they just fall to the left and right and make the rest of leaders in the two party system look worse than they already are. 

[Calandale]

There's a lot of room between even the fringes of the electable party members and either Hitler or Stalin.

The thing is that Hitler didn't rise to power on a platform of "let's go to war with everyone and gas all the Jews". Such a platform would have made him unelectable, even in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler rose to power on a platform of restoring the economy to its former strength (which he did), nationalism and white pride, and scapegoating ethnic minorities.

Is it surprising that people are drawing comparisons? No. Are those comparisons valid? Not really, except at a superficial level.

I agree. The Cheeto-in-chief is far more like Berlusconi - without his own media empire, but rather a supporting one.

It can do a lot of damage to the nation, even so. Especially given the US' position in the world previously.

[Jack]

The real conspiracy theory behind her is she's a plant. That's doubtfully true, but she's still probably the most divisive and destructive force in the democrat party. It seems to the benefit of the republicans to give her a lot of attention.

Nah. She represents an entirely new generation that (hopefully) will change the Democrats.

If they don't change, then they'll end up on her shit list of all the moderate democrats she's threatened to have unseated for not voting the way she wans them to. As for her generation, have long felt bad for the millennials, reaching adulthood in a time when the economy just didn't give them a chance. The way the appear to grasp at any outrage has made them seem a generation desperately needing a cause. If the environment is to be their cause, then good.

It has to be their cause.

Not really sure, but yes that would be great. So far it seems everything is cause, even things that don't seem like causes, any cause, every cause, don't know why...just cause. If the environment is an important part of that, then haven't much noticed; maybe it's been buried in the everything cause. If that energy and primal need for a cause could be focused on something specific, it could mean great things. So sure, the environment, they should pick it and go.

[Jack]

Agree with the majority falling into a centrist band, but that's also only my perception of what other people think. The best study I was referencing before was only a ten year study.

But...the center moved. Many times. Centrist from pre-ACW meant things like supporting the Missouri Compromise.

In more modern times, the big shifts were those 'leftward' (progressive movement of the 1910's, New Deal, Great Society) and then a counter-reaction which started with Reagan. Reagan more or less killed off the Great Society changes,
but after-effects got rid of key New Deal provisions (like Glass-Steagall) and even earlier anti-trust rules.
Ideologically, there seems a drive mainly from the modern right to return to the pre-progressive reforms, trying to get back to
the level of Gilded Age freedom from pesky anti-trust rules.

In some cases, there are good arguments that there has historically been excessive regulation - in the sense
that it impacts growth. The problem is, there are only imperfect solutions ever, and both sides will put on
rosy shades toward change in their own direction. In the case of much of the 'unneeded' regulations, the
only empirical evidence we have of operations without them is frightening. And the slow relaxation has helped
create a wage-imbalance, in conjunction with the assault on labor (treating it like a simple commodity).

The crux of the issue is that the foundation of our society is broken however. Concepts such as a strong
right to private property and valuing everything by the standards of Mammon predetermine that we will
end up with a conflict between what makes people happy and the societal system of worth. This is NOT
human nature - but it may be needed for progress.

The center also flipped at one point, and while there have been more extreme and more moderate elected administrations, the fundamental priorities of either side don't really change. It's the circumstances that do. I do think it's human nature, because essentially what's being discussed is a set of priorities, and the conflict is based in a difference of opinion in how to rank them. Thankfully most people realize none of them should always be more important.

[Jack]

Indeed, in some ways, they're trying to reverse even Teddy Roosevelt's reforms.

It's odd how climate change has made the environment a partisan issue when it hasn't been in the past. While generally the foundations environmental protection legislation are viewed as achievements of the right, it's always been viewed as a left priority and they truly were bipartisan pursuits. Maybe it just needs a different spin on it, to achieve the same results without saying the words climate change.

Considering the conservative right's attitude towards wealth and the preservation and consolidation of wealth, it doesn't seem odd to me at all.

Think of it this way. If I have a thousand tons of coal in my backyard and I dig up ten tons annually to sell, then I have two things to worry about. One is that there is a current market for my coal so that I can keep selling it for a decent amount of money.

The second thing I have to worry about is the value of my asset, particularly if my wealth is based on (for example) a share value for my coal mining company. See, the value of that thousand tons of coal still in the ground in my backyard is based on the perception of whether there will be a market for that coal moving forward. If society is moving towards renewable energy, or if society perceives that burning coal is a bad thing and that moving towards renewable energy is inevitable, then the value of my asset plummets. IF I can convince enough people that the science behind climate change is wrong and that the whole thing is some kind of leftist conspiracy, and if we build windmills then we're all going to get windmill cancer, and we're all going to keep burning coal regardless of what them stupid scientists and leftists say, then the value of my asset is much less affected.

This is already happening, of course. On a very wide scale.

And changing the name from "global warming" to "climate change" already didn't help. Another name change won't work either.

While Trump may boast about coal, he has in reality failed to revive the industry and there's nothing he can do about that. Coal plants have continued to rapidly close, with more coal fired power plants closing in Trumps first two years than in Obama's entire first term, and forecasted to continue closing at more accelerated rates than initially expected if the clean power plan had been left in place. Though you're correct, it's about money. The cost of cleaner and renewable energy sources is falling so rapidly, coal can't compete. When questioned about closing plants, the TVA has stated it's not about coal; it's about economics; it's about keeping cost and rates down. 

[Calandale]

The center also flipped at one point

Indeed it did. Or at least shifted. The whole conversation did.

...and while there have been more extreme and more moderate elected administrations, the fundamental priorities of either side don't really change.

I don't know about that. Some things that seem pretty fundamental (reduced spending, diplomatic stance
in the world) were drastically changed recently. And it's not the only time. The switch on civil rights, for example.
Unless the fundamentals aren't philosophical in nature - because pretty much from inception, the R's have
indeed been the party of big business. Even there though, there was a brief period of progressive Republicans.


Historically, sectionalism played a huge role in defining the parties. Now, it's more about where you get
your funding from - neither seems tremendously ideological in nature.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

^ Yes. It really is far more about where the money comes from than ideology. I'm enjoying your insight here Cal.

There have been some fairly extreme shifts in the past in other countries. The last broadly progressive government in Australia was from 1972 thru 1975. That didn't end well, and there have always been credible rumours of CIA involvement (referenced in the US movie "Falcon and the Snowman"). The next time that same party (Labor) was in power (1983 thru 1996) they went on a neoliberalism kick, they took back the political centre and much of the right as well for a while. Subsequent Labor governments have been fiscally conservative. The conservative party here, on the other hand, has lurched significantly to the right in terms of rhetoric and policy, and has recently toyed with changing leadership and moving so far to the right as to make it almost unelectable (in Australia). We've gone from having a centre-left and a centre-right party to having a centre-right party and a far-right party.

I gave an example before of how a nominally left-wing party can end up being dragged further and further to the right by being prepared to compromise. I lived in the UK for a couple of years under Tony Blair's Labour government and its "3rd Way" of politics. This was supposedly a form of politics that was neither "left" nor "right" in the traditional sense. The 3rd Way was complete bollocks. The "3rd Way" was just Thatcherism dressed up with pretty rhetoric to make it sound like they were trying to help everyone have better lives. Sometimes a centre-left party will shift to the centre-right while maintaining its centre-left rhetoric because that's the best chance for its leaders and power-brokers to get into government and stay in government. It's often more about political careers, and keeping the donors and media onside, than ideology.

[Jack]

The center also flipped at one point

Indeed it did. Or at least shifted. The whole conversation did.

...and while there have been more extreme and more moderate elected administrations, the fundamental priorities of either side don't really change.

I don't know about that. Some things that seem pretty fundamental (reduced spending, diplomatic stance
in the world) were drastically changed recently. And it's not the only time. The switch on civil rights, for example.
Unless the fundamentals aren't philosophical in nature - because pretty much from inception, the R's have
indeed been the party of big business. Even there though, there was a brief period of progressive Republicans.


Historically, sectionalism played a huge role in defining the parties. Now, it's more about where you get
your funding from - neither seems tremendously ideological in nature.

No, wasn't waxing philosophical. Rather thinking of the foundation of it all, economics, national defense, liberty, justice, social welfare. It pretty much all falls under those priorities, and deficiencies within any one of them are what tip the scales of priority. Don't view the center moving around as much as circumstances can dictate how far people are able to stray from it.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

I dunno, Bill Clinton's welfare reforms (for example) were a bit more than a reshuffling of leftist priorities. There is a very real possibility of Bernie Sanders being the Democratic candidate. He wants to do a bit more than reshuffle a few priorities.

[Calandale]

No, wasn't waxing philosophical. Rather thinking of the foundation of it all, economics, national defense, liberty, justice, social welfare. It pretty much all falls under those priorities, and deficiencies within any one of them are what tip the scales of priority. Don't view the center moving around as much as circumstances can dictate how far people are able to stray from it.

Economics - big shifts here. Trickle down was the huge, apparently fallacious, move back from the accepted
understanding that lasted through the mid 20th century by both parties to a position essentially from the 1920's.

National Defense - both parties are largely in alignment here, although the blunders at the beginning of the
millenium caused fringe members on both sides to question some of the military adventurism.

Liberty - both sides seem to be for it - unless it breaks with 'good behavior'. Whatever the ideological
fad of the party is as to what is 'good behavior' seems more of a distinguishing feature. Hard to draw
any solid lines here.

Justice - Until very recently, the nation as a whole bought into the idea of rule of law. Now, that has become
a partisan issue - the law should only apply to your political enemies. At least they still seem in agreement
at heart though - even if the degree may differ.

Social Welfare - here we do see a significant difference, at least in the post New Deal structure. True laissez faire
was gone already, but the question was where should the largess go. That struggle has largely been at the heart
of the differences. Prior to the New Deal, things were more muddled - as with most issues.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

I'm pretty sure you guys still have social welfare. It's just a bit harder to qualify these days. You used to be able to qualify by being a poor person, but these days it's a bit harder and you have to be a billionaire or a large and profitable corporation or a big bank to qualify for social welfare.

See, just reshuffling.

[odeon]

There's a problem with compromise.

You can either dig your heels in or you can meet the other side halfway in order to get stuff done.

Imagine a situation where you have a nominally right-wing party and a nominally left-wing party. The left-wing part keeps on compromising and moving closer to the centre. The right-wing party responds by.... moving further and further to the right.

After a while the compromises of the left have actually dragged it so far to the right that it has gone way past the centre and is now further to the right than the right-wing party was when they got started. The right-wing party, on the other hand, has kept moving so far to the right that the rest of the world is starting to draw comparisons with the Third Reich.

The left-wing party is now in a situation where anyone who actually gives a fuck about working people, and wants billionaires to pay some tax, and who doesn't want to destroy the planet in pursuit of profits.... starts to look like an extremist even by the standards of the formerly left-wing party. And then when they start to finally dig their heels in over the more extreme measures that the far-right wants to implement.... they get accused of not wanting to compromise any more.

Some of this is happening in Sweden.

I think it's fantastic Sweden has official designated parties for their nazis and commies.  The US should do that too. Not only would it make them easier to identify in the government, but also otherwise they just fall to the left and right and make the rest of leaders in the two party system look worse than they already are. 

Oh, trust me. Most of the leaders in our system look bad, too.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

There's a problem with compromise.

You can either dig your heels in or you can meet the other side halfway in order to get stuff done.

Imagine a situation where you have a nominally right-wing party and a nominally left-wing party. The left-wing part keeps on compromising and moving closer to the centre. The right-wing party responds by.... moving further and further to the right.

After a while the compromises of the left have actually dragged it so far to the right that it has gone way past the centre and is now further to the right than the right-wing party was when they got started. The right-wing party, on the other hand, has kept moving so far to the right that the rest of the world is starting to draw comparisons with the Third Reich.

The left-wing party is now in a situation where anyone who actually gives a fuck about working people, and wants billionaires to pay some tax, and who doesn't want to destroy the planet in pursuit of profits.... starts to look like an extremist even by the standards of the formerly left-wing party. And then when they start to finally dig their heels in over the more extreme measures that the far-right wants to implement.... they get accused of not wanting to compromise any more.

Some of this is happening in Sweden.

I think it's fantastic Sweden has official designated parties for their nazis and commies.  The US should do that too. Not only would it make them easier to identify in the government, but also otherwise they just fall to the left and right and make the rest of leaders in the two party system look worse than they already are. 

Oh, trust me. Most of the leaders in our system look bad, too.

Ours are so bad that we change them every other week. Just about.

Here you vote for a local candidate and the party with the most candidates gets to choose a leader. Of course a big factor in most people's votes is who the leader of the party is at the time of the election. But they can choose a new leader any time they want, the voting public gets no direct say in who will be the head of government.

Did I mention that our leaders are really bad?

[Jack]

I dunno, Bill Clinton's welfare reforms (for example) were a bit more than a reshuffling of leftist priorities. There is a very real possibility of Bernie Sanders being the Democratic candidate. He wants to do a bit more than reshuffle a few priorities.

Clinton had already vetoed two welfare reform proposals passed by congress and risked not being reelected and someone else signing it for him. Removing the ability for able bodied people to choose welfare eliminated a lot of abuse in the system, and the excess funds that elimination created was poured back into the DHS in the form of the children's health insurance program which covered millions of children. Eliminating abuse also lifted the social stigma of people on welfare. There's a reason why Clinton's welfare reform is a problem now. At the time it received heavy bipartisan support, though somewhat criticized for forcing people into low paying jobs, but back then a household with children and two minimum wage incomes was a household above the poverty level; now it's generally not.

[Jack]

No, wasn't waxing philosophical. Rather thinking of the foundation of it all, economics, national defense, liberty, justice, social welfare. It pretty much all falls under those priorities, and deficiencies within any one of them are what tip the scales of priority. Don't view the center moving around as much as circumstances can dictate how far people are able to stray from it.

Economics - big shifts here. Trickle down was the huge, apparently fallacious, move back from the accepted
understanding that lasted through the mid 20th century by both parties to a position essentially from the 1920's.

National Defense - both parties are largely in alignment here, although the blunders at the beginning of the
millenium caused fringe members on both sides to question some of the military adventurism.

Liberty - both sides seem to be for it - unless it breaks with 'good behavior'. Whatever the ideological
fad of the party is as to what is 'good behavior' seems more of a distinguishing feature. Hard to draw
any solid lines here.

Justice - Until very recently, the nation as a whole bought into the idea of rule of law. Now, that has become
a partisan issue - the law should only apply to your political enemies. At least they still seem in agreement
at heart though - even if the degree may differ.

Social Welfare - here we do see a significant difference, at least in the post New Deal structure. True laissez faire
was gone already, but the question was where should the largess go. That struggle has largely been at the heart
of the differences. Prior to the New Deal, things were more muddled - as with most issues.

Reganomics could be called a desperate move in desperate times. Same with Obama and unemployment rates reaching near what they were in the early 80's. Neither shifted their party; they played the hand of circumstances they were dealt. Can't definitely say it would have been different if either had first taken office during a time of prosperity, but by the time they were done they had reestablished a balance. The categories with the most agreement signify balance as well. Will agree social welfare is the bucket with the most waves, and since the others are fairly calm, that's a good sign it's the one to be prioritized.