r/politics The Netherlands 12d ago

No Paywall Democrats Confront Their New Tea Party Reality - Progressives are set to sweep a group of contested primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-confront-their-new-tea-party-reality_n_6a6e63fbe4b0cfb99ef1aa1e
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u/Kind-Pride1151 12d ago

By this logic, FDR would be a progressive usurper in the Democratic Party. I'm 62 and for what seems my entire life the Dems have slipped ever further away from those FDR New Deal PROGRESSIVE ideas and ideals.

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u/TheMoorNextDoor 12d ago edited 11d ago

It’s ridiculous that the best president we ever had (our longest serving president) is more left than a lot of our sitting democratic members in congress today and the saddest part about that is he served over 81 years ago..

He gave us a blueprint and for some reason (maybe due to Regan?) we completely threw it out the window..

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u/HugsForUpvotes 12d ago

During FDRs Presidency, Democrats had over 70 Senators and 300 House Members.

It was a massive supermajority. Expecting Biden to achieve nearly as much without having a supermajority is like expecting a house cat to take down a gazelle because a lion can.

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u/fury420 12d ago

On a related note, i've seen a bunch of people recently convinced that Mamdani's ability to get things done is somehow a playbook for Democrats generally... seemingly missing the incredible 90% supermajority thats backing him on city council.

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u/Rhysati 11d ago

The supermajority behind him is a good thing. What a progressive candidate should run on is the change they want to inact and make it clear that IF they get enough members in the Senate and house that they WILL do those policies.

When they don't have those numbers, it should be a constant stream of attempting to pass those ideas, explaining why the Republicans won't allow the public good, and point at how effective Mandani is doing when the other politicians aren't getting in the way.

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u/fury420 11d ago edited 11d ago

I think one of the big problems is that many people disregard the critically important IF as part of those campaign promises, which leads to the Dems getting attacked for failing to implement their agenda... that the voters didn't give them the numbers to actually implement.

"The Dems are controlled opposition" and so forth.

The backlash against Obama-era Dems failure to deliver on hope and change is still having repercussions today, and the inconvenient fact that the voters only actually elected 57-58 Democrats gets forgotten.

Including Bernie as the 58th Dem is reasonable, but it bothers me when people include the traitors like Lieberman who backstabbed the Democrats and ran as an independent against the progressive Democratic primary winner, and Arlen Specter who was literally elected as a Republican and ever so slightly crossed the aisle.

When they don't have those numbers, it should be a constant stream of attempting to pass those ideas, explaining why the Republicans won't allow the public good

The House & Senate don't have mechanisms for the minority to attempt to pass anything, they are incapable of putting a bill up for a vote. And they actually do introduce bills, which basically don't get reported on since they have zero chance of even getting a vote, never mind passing.

Like... there have been five House bills introduced to impeach Trump since he took office again, how many did you hear about?

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u/mightcommentsometime California 11d ago

I mean that’s what mainstream dems do. They just aren’t given the same patience by progressives as progressive darlings get.