The Myth Of Liberal Democrats
Our own Veritas Omnia Vincit is back. In between Spring Cleaning and sailboat maintenance, he’s been commenting on occasion and has noticed, “…a lot of talk about liberal Democrats and I naturally had to write an essay on how Democrats aren’t actually liberal…I might be writing one on how Republicans aren’t actually conservative as well…and then definitely one on the idea that we no longer have a two party system, but a one party system with two factions designed to keep us at odds with each other…”
So he did, and here is is.
(Or their rhetoric versus how they actually govern)
VOV
A regular part of the landscape today is the constant back and forth between Republicans and Democrats and the terms used to define each other. Republicans are often called conservatives, and Democrats are often called liberals when in reality it appears neither party is actually either of those terms anymore if you disregard the rhetoric and look at what happens when they are in a position to govern.
For me those terms liberal and conservative have been bastardized over the years by the two parties as derogatory identifiers that really don’t pair well with the original meanings of those words. There is some change that exists naturally over the course of time as positions evolve but let’s talk about my favorite founder, Thomas Jefferson (Sam Adams comes close for me as well, being that he was a natural rabble rouser) who is often referred to these days as a “classic liberal”. Why is Jefferson called a classic liberal? The conservatives of his day were the people defending the right of the crown to rule from on high as a god given right. Jefferson’s ideas that people are born with natural rights that no government elected or otherwise has any true authority to restrict or diminish were not at all considered the conventional wisdom of the day and were thus labeled liberal ideas. I’ve written previously about Jefferson’s fascination with the writing of John Locke and the identification of those three very basic human rights of life, liberty, and property. Jefferson’s classic liberalism strongly protects the individual’s right to property and seeks to limit interference in the marketplace, keep church and state separate and out of the markets, and the benefits of a civil society that is responsible for the welfare of the poor and ill. As defined by Jefferson classic liberalism is more akin to libertarianism than to today’s notion of liberal politics.
That said, what does liberal today mean in our current state of identity politics and why is that a myth when discussing the Democrats? Today liberalism is often linked to either socialism when used in a derogatory fashion or linked to progressivism when used in a more friendly definition. We in the United States often associate liberalism with the notion of Medicare for All, Abortion, restriction of gun rights, and a tax code that transfers wealth from the monied classes back into the treasury for distribution to the lower 999 percent of the population in a variety of forms. All of those are used in derogatory fashion by Republicans to identify Democrats.
Democrats often help Republicans by mouthing support for those things, but when elected how do Democrats actually govern?
Bill Clinton moved the party to right of center during the 90s to compete for the centrist votes that had gone to Republicans for the previous 12 years. He had his friend Joe Biden write a crime bill that raised the number of incarcerated black Americans from 3-1 when contrasted to white prisoners to 6-1 by the time he left office. Not a very liberal approach to criminal justice reform by any measure of that term, in fact one might successfully argue that it was a fairly conservative approach to the issue of crime. Clinton also reduced the budget deficit, never reduced the debt but did reduce the deficit. Again not a very tax and spend liberal move.
How about the great liberal Obama? Did he govern as a liberal? He certainly said he would, in order to get progressive Democrats to vote for him he promised a universal health care solution. He promised prison reform, he promised an end to foreign wars, he promised an end to the horrors of Gitmo. Progressives and Centrists so believed the message the gave him a super majority in Congress that reduced Republicans to nothing more than impotent spectators in our government. So what did the liberal Obama do with that super majority? He gave insurance corporations the biggest marketplace gift in the nation, forcing Americans to buy a product or face a financial penalty. It was a very conservative corporate gift. How about his other promises? How liberal did he actually act on those promises? He certainly brought some troops home, but to cover the absence of those troops he increased the use of drones by a factor of ten over the Bush administration’s use of drones. He added three nations that Bush refused to bomb to our nation’s bombing campaign effectively increasing by 75% the number of nations being actively bombed. He never closed Gitmo. He helped the Saudis attack Yemen. What part of this is liberal? By what definition are these liberal acts?
When we distill away the rhetoric and look at what actually happened there is no evidence that Obama was anything but a right of center corporate hack as president. Should you doubt just how much of a friend to the one percent that Obama was even the Wall Street Journal wrote a few op-eds describing how much the one percent benefitted during his presidency while the middle class stagnated and the bottom half of wage earners actually lost wealth during the Obama years….so much for liberal wealth transfers.
And that brings us to 2020 where we see the DNC actively working against the only liberal they had in the field. So active were they in their efforts it almost appears as if the Democrats would rather lose with a weak, right of center, early onset dementia patient than try and win with an actual progressive liberal. The Democratic Party as it exists today is anything but liberal, it is a weak and ineffectual right of center Republican lite party at the moment. It is completely beholden to corporate money and corporate interests.
They talk a good game to try and keep their progressive wing in the fold and with the Vote Blue No Matter Who crowd they try and shame those progressives into voting for a turd like Biden. Add in the current national unrest and one might be witnessing a Tea Party like moment on the Democrat side where progressives finally make a play for some true voice in their supposedly liberal party. We’ll see how it all plays out, but after the 2016 loss what we saw was the DNC actively purging all liberal progressives from leadership positions in the party.
Why does this matter? Why do we care that the wrong labels are applied to our parties? That’s a topic for another essay certainly, but in short it’s to make certain that the two parties appear to have some actual separation. Thus the focus on abortion, gun control, and gay rights. It gives single issue voters something to easily identify with because most American voters are so apathetic they vote based on likability rather than voting on any actual platform ideas.
As always thanks for considering my thoughts. I welcome your contrary opinions and look forward to hearing from you.
VOV
He also thanks all of you Delta Whiskies and Whiskettes for the kind words and support during the family’s coronavirus loss, and says how it all was well received by family and friends.
Another thought provoker. Thanks, VOV.
Category: Guest Post, Politics
Great post VOV, and since bidens name was mentioned, last week he was in favor for de funding Police depts which had a negative effect from the LEO organizations so now he is against the de funding most likely remembering how much these organizations/unions make Mooola shmooola $$$$ contributions to his party. Hmm.
Biden is so out of it he’s been kept in his basement during this COVID more as a means to keep his campaign alive than to allow him time to consider a platform that makes sense…
I love that his first words after the Floyd incident were that he would train police to shoot perpetrators in the legs….
I do believe these debates are going to be some classic entertainment as Trump should beat him like a red headed step child…
The British – those few cops that are “Authorized Firearms Officers” I read are trained to shoot at the extremities. Which is of course really dumb.
Source: https://www.pfoa.co.uk/articles/police-involved-shooting
In the US, you use that force which is necessary to stop the act. Center mass is the best shot for vitals, is most likely to hit and least likely to miss over-penetrate.
My statement on the shooting of extremities in the UK may not be accurate. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
I do not want to spread FUD.
The only ones I have seen shooting a gun out of someones hand were Hopolong Cassidy, Lash Larue with a bull whip, Gene Autry, Johhny Mack Brown, Ray “Crash” Corrigan Etc, and those guys were great.
Add Bob Muden.
That guy was insane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS9uGktUCrY
As to the best shot alive, Jerry Miculek.
I watched Bob Munden’s demo at a major cowboy action shoot. His hands moved so fast you couldn’t see them move when he drew. He could fire two shots so fast one couldn’t hear two separate reports.
Spot on VOV and good job of wading us thru the muddy waters that the political parties of this Country have become. We have no really true Statesmen (Statespersons?) and, it seems, none that really have best interest of the people and Country at heart. They are all Democans or Republicrats. Self serving wanna be demi-gods only concerned with being re-elected.
Not sure how I would be classified. I’m registered as an Independent and for several decades feel that I have voted for the lessor of the evils, whether they be D or R or L or I. I just want to be left in peace, with the Country secure from attack, externally and internally, the roads to be in decent shape, and more of my money in my account v being confiscated and given away to deadbeats, scalawags, and ne’er do wells. And those descriptive adjectives encompasses politicians as well as welfare queens. Leave me be and I’ll leave ye be. Sadly, it hasn’t always worked out that way and seems to be getting worse. Flip side? I don’t have that much time left to put up with their bull. The current generation seems to be wanting to vote us into Socialism and some of us that don’t want it will be too old to shoot our way out.
Be Aware…Be Eternally Vigilant!
Awesome job, VOV.
I agree completely.
Though it probably won’t help your position that I agree with it.
Though it probably won’t help your position that I agree with it.
I’ll take my chances…
The problem with being an independent libertarian leaning individual is you have some crossover with both liberals and conservatives, the true definitions of both not this neoliberal and false conservative crap…
As such there plenty of time where I am called a Trumpie or a Libtard by those who only know the rhetoric they’ve been trained to understand from the D or the R side of the aisle.
We are truly a single issue voter nation, and because we as a nation are mostly really low information voters the D and R know how to exploit that.
They do it so well that people will argue over the significant differences between the factions regardless of the evidence presented them with respect to the continual upward wealth transfer over the last 50 years. That is truly a testament to the power of propaganda repeated often enough to become perceptive truth.
Thank you for the civility.
No one should fit into just one box. That’s hive/mob mind.
Use objective reasoning and raw facts.
Liberal in the classic sense should mean, “free thinking.”
But yeah, both parties have hijacked words.
Racist and misogynist no longer have valid meanings.
“Boot on your neck party”
Left Boot and Right boot
Corruptocrats and grifters nominally of either boot, at cold war with the idealogues and fanatics of each boot, and all of those standing upon the necks of their common foe:
Ordinary folks.
Of course, there are grifters and ideologues -far- worse than the boot-on-neck party. Some of the other odd-boot parties are face-stampy. Some would face-stamp with revolutionary sandals, or even earth-friendly bare feet. And their grifters, oh my…
If there is one thing I like about Trump, it is that he annoys just about every sole in the boot party, and the various face-stampy alternates.
Those who disagree won’t even consider that point, having been driven mad with frustration already. Raging opponents are less effective opponents. Watching the lot of the boots self-destruct is a joy of a lifetime.
Another one hit out of the park VoV. Always a pleasure to read your writing on these subjects.
Ever since I turned off the news, I’ve found myself moving farther and farther into the Libertarian camp, as its the party that closest aligns with my views. Its also a good thing that the Libertarian party actually encourages free thought and debate, because Libertarian voters aren’t taking the piss that is American media these days.
I’ve been getting dog piled these last few days for pointing out the convenience to power grabbers of everything from the COVID response to Floyd’s death, and how much the media controls peoples thoughts via emotion. It only gets crazier when I start pointing out how the Dumbocrats policies have caused more harm than good to black Americans, or that Republicants, despite having the majority of Congress and the White House in 2016, didn’t do anything about Obama care. Apparently I’m a conspiracy theorist now, or something. Free thought is practically dead in America.
I look forward to the rest of your writings on this subject.
Too long, didn’t read.
You are so full of shit, VoV.
Clinton reduced the deficit because the Republican house made him to.
Conservatives do NOT grant corporate gifts as you imply.
American conservatism means limited government, not the new world order corporate paradise of the Bushies which you seen to equate with conservatism.
You are operating under the assumption Republican equals conservative. That has never been the case, and nobody here claims that’s the case, as far as I can tell.
Also, Obamacare was designed to fail, and open the way for a single payer system.
Obama believed, like Lenin before him, that capitalist pigs would sell him to rope with which to hang them.
Thus Obamacare. Designed to collapse our medical system. Many people have been working for years for government control of the medical care.
After all, they succeeded doing the same with our educational system, so why not.
FAVT: The quality of public education in the United States took a nosedive after Jimmeh Kahtuh established the US Department of Education which that and the Department of Energy, are IMHO in dire need of disbanding.
VoV, the funny part is that you think you are so awesome, a free thinker, outside the eco chamber.
Thumper your bible of classical liberalism! “The truth is always in the center!”.
Pleez. If you can’t see the slide towards totalitarism, socialism, collectivism, and government control of everything, then you are one of them.
Fellow travelers of the communists like you are the ones that will enable the totalitarians to enslave our future generations.
I blame it on you. Because communists and socialists are a known quantity, but without people like you to justify giving them a voice and normalizing their participation in our political discourse, they could not get their foot in the door.
And this is the greatest sin the Democrat party has committed against America. Normalizing communism.
A man is about to do a foolish thing. So the Conservative says to the man “don’t do that, there will be terrible consequences” and the Libertarian says “do what you want, suffer the consequences” and the Lefty says “do what you want, we’ll subsidize the consequences”. So the man does the foolish thing with predictable results and the Conservative says “I told you not to do that, but there are some timeless principles that, if you pay heed to them, might help you recover” and the Libertarian says “sucks to be you, but if you learn from it you’ll probably be a better person” and the Lefty says “you poor man, you’re obviously a victim of capitalism, the patriarchy, heteronormativity, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.” I submit to you that one of those points of view is pathological and that that pathological worldview informs the policies that that worldview pursues in government. No need to make it any more complicated than that.
This is all utter nonsense.
Lars right now I am watching #shutdownSTEM trend on Twitter and it isn’t Conservatives or Libertarians pushing it. Sorry that your worldview is inherently pathological, sucks to be you.
Well done, VoV. No argument from here on your assessment. Always considered myself a liberal (in the classic sense), but have to be very careful where I admit that.
The only observation with which I might argue is the difference between the two major parties. On the national level, we are in complete agreement. On the local level, there are still some significant differences, at least in some localities. How widespread that is across the country I simply do not know.
As I often say, we would not be in this mess were it not for the cooperation of both major parties. A variation on that theme is that both major parties are driving us into socialism – one is just driving faster than the other.
Where I find weakness in your position, VOV, is that you predicate much of your denial of Democrats being liberal based on their failure to accomplish their liberal goals rather than their what their true intentions are. Their political incompetence should not be construed as evidence of their political intent. Look at what they’ve done in those places where their ability to enact their political intentions is unhindered. Day after day here at TAH, we decry the policies that have been enacted in California, Illinois, New York, Washington State and Washington, DC, your own Peoples Republic of Massachusetts, Maryland, and so on, as foolishly WHAT? Foolishly LIBERAL, that’s what. When was the last time we had a discussion here about a state or major city being foolishly conservative? Go back into TAH archives and read the discussions here regarding the drastic changes Democrats have been imposing on Virginia since taking total control of the state government apparatus there. I don’t recall anyone here praising those changes (other than Lars of course and perhaps LC) but I do recall a helluva lot of support for those municipal and county governments in the commonwealth resisting those LIBERAL changes up to the point of secession. How about taxes as a liberal/conservative defining issue. Sure, conservative politicians will tax you and spend your money foolishly, but where is it we see the absolute worst such examples of overly burdensome taxes and reckless spending? It’s certainly not in the so-called conservative states, is it? And who is it that has a virtual lock on government in the states and cities where we see the most egregious examples of such tax and spend lunacy? It sure as hell isn’t Republicans. Sure, you can point to an exception like your own RINO governor, but the rule shows it’s Democrats 90% of the time, following their LIBERAL intentions. One of the problems I have with libertarianism is that “both sides do it–no difference between the parties” argument so often proffered as justification. There’s no difference in Republican governance and Democrat governance? Then please explain the exodus of Californians… Read more »
There is an assumption, bordering on a belief in magic, that anarchy is ultimately pleasant. History -repeatedly- shows otherwise, and the post-anarchy is often even worse.
Humans create order, and seek it. We are also hard-wired to misbehave. The historical evidence is bold-letter obvious, for all who care to look at reality and use reason to decide. Less imposed order is generally better, simply having fewer opportunities to go wrong or to be abused. “None”, however, is as fatal as “too much”. To the degree the agreed-upon order rewards virtue and discourages vice, the system works. Some folks are disagreeable, intentionally. The system has to address deliberately disagreeable folks, or it fails.
Liberty is vastly preferable to whatever is in second place. Liberty is not, however, Anarchy. Liberty is not spawned by Anarchy.
I’m not looking for anyone to agree with me at all, what I’m pointing out is that when you consider who benefits from Democratic “liberal” policies it’s never the public.
Typically when you look at a society, any society, who benefits from the governing class policies is who is in charge of that society.
Suggesting that Democrats are liberal implies they are willing to take from the rich and give to the poor. That is not at all the case. It’s not because Republicans stand in their way it’s because the people who operate the Democrats are the same people who operate the Republicans.
The entire point here is that the one percent always gets legislation passed that benefits them regardless of which party is currently in a power position in government.
Your point about Obamacare not being conservative reinforces that point. I did not suggest it was conservative I said it was right of center and corporate. His Obamacare was a corporate gift, no different than the countless corporate gifts from both parties as enticements to corporate America.
If he were actually a liberal he would have made Medicare For All a reality and insurance companies would have been bankrupted instead of seeing their stock prices rise after Obamacare’s passage. If he were actually a liberal he would have passed a tax reform bill that restored Eisenhower level taxation brackets into the tax code.
Obama is no more a liberal than Trump is a conservative, at least not in the classic definitions of either of those terms.
I appreciate your commentary as always, and thank you for offering those views.
Ahhh…the apex fallacy.
Both parties are left of center. Neither party is liberal per se.
As the concept of liberal has equated with Marxism and that of conservative with anti-Marxist thought, saying things like Obama was center right is moronic.
Yes, moronic. And propaganda shilling.
Obama and Bush both did what all “liberals” do…they bombed and lied.
Why this is hard to understand is a mystery to me.
And yes, the fact that Kummissar agrees should tell you that you are in left field speaking giberish.
The propaganda shilling is assuming that a right of center policy that caused insurance industry stocks to rise was somehow a liberal policy.
Assuming any policy that benefits corporate America over average citizens is somehow left of center is to perhaps misinterpret what the corporate center means and what liberal and conservative mean in definitive terms.
Policy that takes money out of the middle class and transfers it to the top 15% isn’t liberal. It isn’t liberal under any definition of the word.
It is corporate policy that is right of center in nature in that it’s a totalitarian policy designed to benefit neither the government itself or the people, but tilts towards the monied class that owns the government and that is what shifts it right of center.
When we define liberal to mean anti-government//anti-monied class we then can’t claim a policy that benefits the monied class is liberal or even leaning liberal.
Which was the gist of the essay, that the monied class which benefits from Democrats in power defines who the Democrats are far better than Republicans or Democrats can define Democrats.
“When we define liberal to mean anti-government//anti-monied class we then can’t claim a policy that benefits the monied class is liberal or even leaning liberal.”
And therein lies our disagreement: You define liberal as anti-government when their actions and policies show them to be proponents of strong central government and antagonists of the rights granted to us in the Constitution. The oppressive manner in which liberal states (Democrat-controlled) have dealt with the COVID virus as opposed to conservative (Republican-controlled) is an extant and excellent example.
As for Obama, he was groomed from childhood by a classic Chicago communist and his right hand adviser in the White House was from one of the most prominent families in the hierarchy of Chicago communism, Valerie Jarrett. You’d have to be incredibly persuasive to ever convince ol’ Poe that they were put there to enact “conservative” policies.
Again, don’t look at their results, often limited by incompetence or hampered by Republican opposition, look at their INTENT as a truer measure of their beliefs.
I agree that Democrats do not meet the classic definition of liberal, but the meaning of the term “liberal” has changed. Getting too hung up on labels does not address the reality of our current circumstances.