tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post8462119868046867444..comments2024-03-19T03:17:00.404-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: A RESPONSE TO A COMMENTRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-75458349597105476452020-08-31T14:30:11.810-04:002020-08-31T14:30:11.810-04:00I am leery of placing parties on a continuum. But,...I am leery of placing parties on a continuum. But, when you look at statistical methods that place elected officials and parties on a left-tight spectrum we find that the democrats are, and have been for several cycles, a left of center party. The Democratic Party distribution look like a bell curve where the right tail barely touches the center line. (The method is called dw-nominate)<br /><br />This should not be surprising since the Dixiecrats left ages ago. Similarly, the republicans shed their liberals (northeastern) following the Reagan era realignment. The myth bi-partisanship derives from Dixiecrats voting with republicans on desegregation, and liberal republicans voting with the democrats on education and environmental issues. <br /><br />The predominant reality of party politics since Reagan is the rightward shift of the Republicans to where they now occupy the space reserved for fascists. The mainstream polisci notion of a political party is a coalition of disparate groups that have some core common agreement on issues and an understanding that if a group gives on one issue it will get support on others. The Democrats have been a weak party because they lost their union base, and compromised with the republicans in the new-liberal era. It was not a weak party under FDR - everybody knew where it stood. <br /><br />The Democrats are picking up the vast majority of voters under 30 (men and women) who have not been major players until 2018. Dems are also picking people who were republican learners. These folks have been cross pressured for a long time - many who think small gov’t is a good principle also were pro-environment, gay marriage, etc. and They contributed to the wave in 2018. So the Dems pick up suburban, educated women and a lesser number of men, a solid majority of Hispanic voters. Add in the NE and west-coast liberals along with the Black vote and here we are. <br /><br />I think the real issue will center around how well the dems can integrate the progressive cohort. A party that stands for economic and health security, racial justice and systematic reform of policing, and the green new deal, and delivers will, I think, be something like the reincarnation of the party of FDR. If they can’t get together on these issues, a centrist democratic/republican coalition and a progressive party will likely enter the lists with the fascists.<br /><br /><br /><br /> Christopher J. Mulvaney, Ph.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15817420454023465228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-91960138045258596202020-08-31T08:09:46.584-04:002020-08-31T08:09:46.584-04:00Simple, DudeDiogenes, because I am clueless.Simple, DudeDiogenes, because I am clueless.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00539282738331755404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-28949379397963583472020-08-31T03:22:49.232-04:002020-08-31T03:22:49.232-04:00Not at all related to the point of this post, but ...Not at all related to the point of this post, but why, Prof, the adoption of the Woke-ism "Latinx", when <a href="https://twitter.com/CharlesFLehman/status/1293247986965843968" rel="nofollow">"A scant 3% of Latino adults use the term 'Latinx'"</a> (and 76% have not even heard of the term)?TheDudeDiogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613928663752680375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-2002612622312461622020-08-30T23:52:10.476-04:002020-08-30T23:52:10.476-04:00Thanks for finding some merit in my earlier commen...Thanks for finding some merit in my earlier comment. I'll now try another:<br /><br />Wrt the political parties as fusions, it seems to me that the Democratic party is still an amalgamation, a somewhat loose amalgamation of parties—district parties of various sorts, state parties, and regional parties each oriented around the several sorts of electoral competitions that go on, all of which can only with some difficulty be got to act somewhat in unison to try to capture the Presidency. No surprise, then, that ‘the democratic Party’ was and is a "weak party," rather incapable of enforcing party discipline. I see the Republicans as having been quite the same sort of coalition of electoral convenience until quite recently. But maybe with the coming of Trump, we’ve seen the emergence in the USA of what has been termed a “strong party’ of the sort that was more frequently encountered in Europe? That would be both its strength and its weakness. For in the American context, maybe enforced party discipline results in the loss of some of those components that can sometimes coordinate their political activities as parts of a weak party. {The same sort of thing can be seen in today’s Britain, perhaps. The Tories began to expel, one way or another, their so-called Wets. Johnson has followed up on that Thatcherite approach by expelling those Tories who opposed Brexit. And the Labour Party is perhaps on the way to expelling the Party’s left wingers by, for one, weaponising anti-Semitism.}R McDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84162768690380430992020-08-30T17:24:49.429-04:002020-08-30T17:24:49.429-04:00I wondered about that.I wondered about that.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00539282738331755404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-59007388661479832472020-08-30T16:07:26.729-04:002020-08-30T16:07:26.729-04:00Oops, that should have been:
"We of the olde...Oops, that should have been:<br /><br />"We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution."<br />Lenin, January <i>1917</i><br /><br />The Tsar abdicated in March 1917, just 2 months later.Eric Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-66983495965351195512020-08-30T14:57:13.887-04:002020-08-30T14:57:13.887-04:00"I rather think I won’t live long enough to s...<i>"I rather think I won’t live long enough to see all of this play out but we may be able to discern the beginnings of it as early as 2021."</i><br /><br />"We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution."<br />Lenin, January 1905Eric Cnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-65424283522208520022020-08-30T12:01:50.882-04:002020-08-30T12:01:50.882-04:00I wish I could believe that things were looking up...I wish I could believe that things were looking up for Biden, but <a href="https://theelectricagora.com/2020/08/29/how-to-lose-an-election-that-you-should-win-in-a-fucking-landslide/" rel="nofollow">after this summer</a>, I just can't.TheDudeDiogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613928663752680375noreply@blogger.com