Originally Posted by
The Overlord
If moderates are always the way to go, why didn't Clinton win in 2016? Heck, why didn't Kerry win in 2004? Pragmatism should be a means, not an end and it shouldn't an excuse to elect someone like Biden, who is just a moderate Republican.
The reason why Warren and Sanders kicked everyone else's butt at the first debate this month because they offered real solutions to real problems and everyone else offered pablum. These are popular policies, we should go with them over a bunch of meaningless pap. The Dems have ceded the economic debate to the GOP for so long, that they have become just as responsible for the hollowing out of the middle class and Trump was able to take left-wing arguments about trade and use them against Hilary Clinton because she is a center-right corporate Dem. He beat her because of that, if someone could make a better working-class argument then Trump did, then those arguments of his neutralized.
The right seems to get a lot of it wants all the time, Turtle Man Mitch stole a Supreme Court seat and managed to keep 106 judicial appointments during the Obama years, Brian Kemp was able to run a dirty election in Georgia, the GOP uses gerrymandering to maintain their power base, how exactly are they being they are being punished for their actions? The Democrats are so weak, they let the GOP walk all over them, why did Obama appoint a Republican like Comey to run the FBI? If Comey was not in that position, maybe he wouldn't have resurrected the e-mail thing so late in the 2016 election? How often do the Republicans return the favor and appointment Democrats to such positions? The Republicans are not going to play nice, why should we? Being nice to people who want to dominate you is foolish.
The Republicans come off as stronger then the Dems, because they present an image where they will fight as hard as they can as long as they can for their base, while Dems have just ceded half the ground to the GOP right away and come off as people who often just cave in with a little pressure from the other side?
Frankly, Obama was the last chance to show that this type of Clinton era neo-liberal, center-right policy agenda to work and the GOP did every to scuttle it, doing that again is doing the same thing and expecting different results.