The Democrats USA (2018-2020)

There is a strong push to the left, not only in the party but also among the voters.
I could make a laundry list of ideas that seemed "too radical" 4 years ago and now just seem to be "good ideas".

Part of that is due to Trump. part to Covid. Part to BLM. Part to Warren and Sanders.
Biden can still appear moderate while just going with the flow. He doesn't even have to work at it.
 
Lou,

Some of it may be due to the natural tendency of human beings to become more intelligent, more knowledgable, and more ethical over time

Although this is such a painfully slow process it is hard to believe it is happening at times, if you take the longer view of history it is clear that human beings were dumber and more nasty in the past. To take the US as an example, you've gone from slavery to lynchings to segregation to a black President. In the long view of history, it's certainly progress.

Anyway, so what I'm saying is that as society becomes more intelligent and ethical it naturally becomes more left wing. Of course, as that happens, the goalposts shifts and what was considered left wing becomes a centrist policy. But the centrist policies of today are the uber radical left wing policies of some years ago, and the Warren/Sanders/Corbyn ideas of today may also become the cross party consensus somewhere down the road.

There are so many examples of it.

Gay marriage: 1990s not legal in any country. Right wing vs left wing issue. Even Obama wouldn't speak in favour of it at first. Result: left wing policy becomes consensus.

Climate change: right wing denial lost, left wing won (at least in accepting the existing of science, if not in actually reacting to it much).

Minimum wage: In the UK, the right wing Tories used to be against any minimum wage at all as recently as perhaps the 1990s or even early 2000s I think. Now you will struggle to find any major politician in the UK that would speak against it. The Tories have actually been increasing it.

NHS: In the beginning in the UK, just the very idea of a public health service was a left wing idea. Now the Tories fall over themselves to say how much they admire NHS workers while hoping everyone forgets that it took a lefty government to ever create it in the first place.

Wars in the middle East: Take the Iraq war that was heavily opposed by the left wing side. Can you see a war like that happening today, supported by the UK. I think not. Nowadays the bar for western involvement in middle East wars is higher.

Then there's racism in the US. Now every company and person is tweeting that black lives matter, but a while ago it was only left wing people (as well as black people themselves of course) who really saw it as a major issue.

Now the left is also starting to win the broader war on the excesses of neoliberal capitalism, this decade will see change.

In my view, the "radical", progressive liberal left is missing a strategic opportunity to say "We are usually right!" When will people look at the historical record when they vote!

That being said, I am respectful of conservative ideology and think the right wing is more correct than the left on a minority of issues but there is also sometimes a pattern where the left stands for positive change and the right for resistance to change.

But in general this whole thing of Biden shifting to the left may just be the politicians following the shifting sands beneath their feet so that they don't fall over. Half the things Biden said in the 1970s or 1980s would probably count as right wing today.
 
@Jamie in Chile
Great post. Good job with the examples.

I'm not so sure about your central theory that there is a " natural tendency of human beings to become more intelligent, more knowledgable, and more ethical over time".

An alternate theory, one which I subscribe to is that "social movements" gain strength and momentum "over time".

I think that all of your examples can be flipped to become examples of social movements growing stronger. (and not people getting better).

I do 100% agree that people were nastier in the past. but i am less sure that we are less nasty now because of some kind of evolutionary progress. I think it is more likely to be a cultural thing.

I also think that no matter what theory you subscribe to - its probably not linear progress. I think like other things its got its ups and downs. Pendulum swings. We have the Greeks and the birth of democracy followed by the birth of tyranny. The dark ages followed by the age of enlightenment.
 
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Just watched Last Week Tonight while eating breakfast.
It is about History.

Jon Oliver also expounding on that progress is not linear but has ups and downs and he uses civil rights as a an example. The great reforms of the Reconstruction era being obliterated by the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow Laws is a good example of the ups and downs nature and not the linear progress view. Despite the anti-segration laws of the 50s, America's schools are not only more segregated now but the economic divide is larger.
 
I think the world is in a period of linear progress at the moment, or at least we were until 2016. Since then, you could argue that things have stood still or even gone backwards a bit.

I agree progress isn't always linear though, wars, major disasters, dictatorships...

There might be some truth in that it's more cultural. However, not sure to what extent that agrees with or opposes the way I described it.

There is of course the Flynn effect that shows that over the decades and generations people have got better at IQ tests - of course it's disputed whether that's partly evolutionary or down to something else like modern nutrition or the fact that people have more free time to develop their brains. (It could even be that people have simply got better at doing those tests, without actually being more intelligent, although I doubt it.)

I suppose evolution obviously made us smarter since we started out as apes but the Flynn effect does seem quite fast for an evolutionary process. The Flynn effect seems to be levelling off now as well.
 
"I think the world is in a period of linear progress at the moment, or at least we were until 2016. Since then, you could argue that things have stood still or even gone backwards a bit. "

Sure. but just judging by what I read in the paper, there seems to be A LOT of progress lately in a few specific areas.

"I agree progress isn't always linear though, wars, major disasters, dictatorships..."

Technologically a lot of progress is made in war time.

"There might be some truth in that it's more cultural. However, not sure to what extent that agrees with or opposes the way I described it."

Yeah, it is kind of hard to separate the effects. but i was assuming your point of view was that we were improving as a species - a more biological phenomenon. I'm seeing progress made with movements - a more cultural phenomenon.

"There is of course the Flynn effect that shows that over the decades and generations people have got better at IQ tests - of course it's disputed whether that's partly evolutionary or down to something else like modern nutrition or the fact that people have more free time to develop their brains. (It could even be that people have simply got better at doing those tests, without actually being more intelligent, although I doubt it.) "

I've also seen the creation of the tests and the grading scale as explanations of the Flynn effect.

"I suppose evolution obviously made us smarter since we started out as apes but the Flynn effect does seem quite fast for an evolutionary process. The Flynn effect seems to be levelling off now as well."

If you just start the clock at Homo sapiens sapiens, about 40 - 60,000 years ago you can't really detect any changes in our brains or bodies that can't be attributed to modern science ( nutrition, medicine, prenatal care).* A human who lived before the invention of agriculture probably had to solve more problems than a modern man. The right kind of test might say he was smarter.

* I did read something about the average tooth size has decreased over the last 10,000 years
 
You make some interesting points Lou that is food for thought. I don´t really have anything to add to that at the moment.
 
OK. No one I truly wanted was in the running, and I'm very very glad he picked a woman of color. That's the best I can say about it.
I would have liked Stacey Abrams

I didn't think Stacey and some of the other "contenders" had enough experience to be President if anything happened to Biden. Also whoever is his VP is the automatic front runner for the Dem Pres Nominee in 2024

I would have bet against Kamala cause I thought she would have made a great AG.

But my guess is that it came down to name recognition.

As a Californian she doesn’t bring any electoral votes - Biden has California wrapped up.

She adds some vulnerability in attack ads. Her attack on Biden during the debate, her tough on crime stance as AG in California.

someone said it doesn’t matter who Biden picks - they will get attacked. But you can count on Harris attacking back. And traditionally VPs are given more negative campaigning responsibilities. Also I don't think Trump has ever attacked her like he had the other presidential nominees. Maybe he doesn't know what to do with her. Make fun of her shoes?

She doesn’t really bring any more black women to the polls but black women are great democratic campaign workers and she sews that up for Biden.

I’m not sure she is the best choice for President in 2024. Will people vote for a black woman?

maybe this is the most important thing - if something happens to Biden - she can govern.

she will lose her seat in the senate (although VPs get to break ties). but also her seat in the Senate won't be in jeopardy. Newsom will appoint a democrat.
 
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I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if Kamala will lose us some of the Biden supporters. I think I’m just too nervous and scared that we will have four more years of Trump so I’m pretty much a negative Nelly.
 
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And traditionally VPs are given more negative campaigning responsibilities. Also I don't think Trump has ever attacked her like he had the other presidential nominees. Maybe he doesn't know what to do with her. Make fun of her shoes?

Good insights, thanks, very helpful.

I think the obvious play for Trump will be video ads about how she refused to give the death penalty to someone who killed a cop in California and try and twist this and make her look soft on crime.

That's probably about the best he's going to be able to do.
 
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I'm sure he'll end up making things up about her, lying comes pretty naturally to him. Unfortunately his supporters believe everything he says and will repeat it, and some non supporters will end up thinking it's true as well.
 
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I'm sure he'll end up making things up about her, lying comes pretty naturally to him. Unfortunately his supporters believe everything he says and will repeat it, and some non supporters will end up thinking it's true as well.
It’s already started. There are two guys on FB who circulate videos, the Hodgetwins, and they started already. I didn’t watch the whole thing because I didn’t want to get aggravated this early in the morning and it was posted by a friend.
They were making fun, saying she was picked because she is black but that she isn’t really black (her mom is Indian, dad Jamaican) and has hurt black people over the years.
 
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One of the easily predicted results of the VP announcement is that so far today Not all of today's news is about Trump. Although I'll only give it till lunchtime before Trump says or does something so awful that the media go back to paying attention to Trump.

Meanwhile, my newsfeed is filling up with Harris stories. And the NYT one was really good. The SF Chronicle one was also very good. And I liked the one by the Guardian. But my favorite so far is the one from the Chicago Tribune










 
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Is anyone concerned, and willing to share their views, on the whole “pedophile” issue regarding Biden and democrats in general. It’s all I keep seeing and it’s likely to get really ugly as we get closer to November. I’m nervous it’s going to make us lose the election. But I do tend to be a negative nelly in some regards.

Does anyone have anything to say that will put my mind at ease?
 
Pedophile thing?

oh wait, are you still on Pizzagate? I know QAnon is in the news again. One of QAnon's main theories is that "President Trump is at war with a global cabal of powerful, Satan-worshiping elites who control the world and run a child sex ring."

I guess it is scary that thousands of people apparently believe this stuff. Normally I would shrug it off and say that there have always been crazies but QAnon seems to be gaining popularity all over the place.

Marjorie Greene, a racist and QAnon supporter just won the primary for a congressional district in Georgia. She hasn't been elected to congress yet. I'm hoping that the good people of Georgia will vote for a democrat this time.

Some Republican lawmakers have spoken out against Q. but most of them have ignored the subject.

OH, and just yesterday, the NYT ran a piece on QAnon. I just read it - its pretty good. But don't believe a word of it. Everyone knows that the NYT's edidtors are part of "the global cabal of powerful, Satan-worshiping elites who control the world and run a child sex ring."

;)



 
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No not so much that stuff, although I have a cousin who’s FB page is nothing but pizza gate and QAnon...but more personal stuff about Biden and the sexual misconduct allegations that were made against him...the video of the little girl flinching when he touched her, the sniffing of the woman’s hair, that kind of stuff. And they are dragging up Bill Clinton...
 
I think I’m just so nervous about this election that everything is scaring me...