If Americans were ever offered a real choice between LW and RW . . .

[KingOrfeo]

So you're saying that Americans really want economic slavery, really want their liberty crushed by Leviathan? I think you're delusional.

I'm saying that if you break the progressive agenda down one initiative at a time, there are many such that will get majority support.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The Democrats need a straight arrow. This would be someone like Bill Clinton, without the womanizing, and with a good military record. He would be a church going, faithful husband who distinguished himself in the Gulf War, and/or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He would probably be from the South, and from humble origins, like Bill Clinton. He could be a liberal, especially on economic issues, but he would need to be someone a white filling station attendant in rural Alabama would feel comfortable with.

Would he need to be white?

 

[sethp]

I think we're all worried about having Hillary or Bush. Nobody wants that. Next, we're all worried about some of the wackos on the right like Huckabee, Bachmann or Carson. It's not looking good for us next election.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

The rich do not always get their political way and I believe most people are aware of that.

See the Gilens-Page study.

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.

The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month's ruling on McCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.

"Ordinary citizens," they write, "might often be observed to 'win' (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail."

 

[KingOrfeo]

There's the old saying that those who sell their freedom for a little security, deserve neither.

There is such a saying. What is your point? If America adopted Canadian-style or even British-style universal health care, you would remain as free as you are now.

 

[rosco rathbone]

HOws this for a plan: (real) left and right realize that they're describing the same enemy (corporate/government amalgamation) from two different perspectives and unite behind a strong leader to destroy the elite center and hang davos man from the lampposts.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Doubt it.. They kind of like it otherwise it would have been repealed when the Dems held both houses..

Did I ever suggest the Democratic Party is left-progressive? That label applies only to a minority faction of its pols -- and they are the only ones who ever raise any serious fuss about the national surveillance/security state.

The left is PART of the problem as well... so that is never going to change.

Not the rich-always-getting-their-way problem, it isn't. (The Tea Party is part of that problem, intentionally or not.)

 

[KingOrfeo]

If you think Obama is not a leftist, I shudder to think about whom you think is.

Warren, Sanders, Kucinich . . . didn't I make that clear in the OP? I hope none of them make you shudder, they ain't exactly scary. None is a potential Lenin or Stalin.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Warren, Sanders, Kucinich . . . didn't I make that clear in the OP? I hope none of them make you shudder, they ain't exactly scary.

wtf, you are a fucking bigger retard then I ever thought one could be...

warren is a total fucking nutcase, is she still a Indian? socialist asshat that needs to be sent to cuba

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'm not all that partisan. In the 2016 election, I might vote GOP and I might vote Dem., depending on whom is nominated. If both major candidates suck, I might vote Libertarian or I might write in Mickey Mouse

Fuck that shit! Lizard People in 2016!

 

[KingOrfeo]

Looks like Walker is leading the pack at present among Republicans:

https://polldaddy.com/poll/8625087/

I don't think Walker is quite the hard-RW/Tea party candidate envisioned in the OP. More GOP bizcon/mainstream.

Would you vote for him in the primary? Against Cruz or Perry or Huckabee?

 

[KingOrfeo]

I think we're all worried about having Hillary or Bush. Nobody wants that.

Why? Each presents a prospect more dull than scary.

 

[KingOrfeo]

HOws this for a plan: (real) left and right realize that they're describing the same enemy (corporate/government amalgamation) from two different perspectives and unite behind a strong leader to destroy the elite center and hang davos man from the lampposts.

Somehow I don't think the right is on the verge of realizing that. Except for Pat Buchanan's paleocon right, and they're not getting much traction.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Somehow I don't think the right is on the verge of realizing that. Except for Pat Buchanan's paleocon right, and they're not getting much traction.

I'd vote for the second coming of Uncle Pat in a second.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'd vote for the second coming of Uncle Pat in a second.

Feh. Too racist, too anti-Semitic. The relevant question is, is there any way he and his paleocons could line up behind a Warren/Sanders/Kucinich/Nader? If not, they don't really matter. And I think the progressive take on immigration policy, in particular, would be too much for them to swallow.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

Who said he was hard RW/Tea party? You that's who.

No, I didn't; and if he's not, then he's not relevant to the hypothetical of this discussion. Reread the OP.

 

[KingOrfeo]

This is disingenuous bullshit.

It's fair, I've read some of Buchanan's books.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Feh. Too racist, too anti-Semitic. The relevant question is, is there any way he and his paleocons could line up behind a Warren/Sanders/Kucinich/Nader? If not, they don't really matter. And I think the progressive take on immigration policy, in particular, would be too much for them to swallow.

What elements of the progressive platform would you be willing to give up on?

 

[unregistered]

 

[KingOrfeo]

Bullshit. They are all Socialists, and who knows how far they would go.

Are they? Sanders calls himself one, but many socialists insist he is No True Socialist. WRT the other two, it's laughable.

And you (should) know that there are socialists and socialists -- and American Socialists have always -- ever since 1917 -- been distinguished from American Communists by being anti-Leninist/Stalinist democratic socialists. And democratic socialists ain't scary, not even when they win.