The Democratic Party has moved too far to the left.

[hollodero]

(12-02-2019, 04:36 PM)Dill Wrote: How about "never 'Lefters,'" with the obligatory quotation marks to signal dubious application?  Never "leftism" seems to bring with it a congenital blindness to Trump damage at the constitutional and policy level, though it concedes his vulgarity.

That aligns with my perspective, yes.

(12-02-2019, 04:36 PM)Dill Wrote: The "strict duality" you refer to seems to me rather new.  40 years ago both parties were more evenly leavened with liberals and conservatives. No party had its own cable news network presenting "alternative facts."

Yeah, I don't know, I just can see the now. My thesis is that the networks and media outlets made the duality that strict. You're either with us or with the Dems, and overlaps or concessions are close to treason and make Tucker look very concerned.
Bring along Trump, and the principle gets exposed by the exalted nature of that person. I mean, he literally calls into FOX and rambles something mind-boggingly incoherent and stupid on air for hours time and again, and they still are loyal 100%. And set the example.

(12-02-2019, 04:36 PM)Dill Wrote: By 2009, McConnell could order all Republican Senators to vote against the ACA and then define the bill as therefore "partisan" because it had no Republican support.

lol, yeah, they are good in this cheap and misleading rhetorics game. Not that Dems wouldn't try to match them, they are just not as consistent and good in it.

(12-02-2019, 04:36 PM)Dill Wrote: If you are suggesting a link between the narrowed voting options of our two-party system and the apparent constitutional crisis in which we Americans now find ourselves, then I agree there is plausibility to that view. The current crisis seems irresolvable as the current party-goverment system is configured.  I am unconvinced the problem is truly structural.

But it is structural. In that the structure cements the two-party system and all that comes along with it, from blind partisanry to gerrymandering to lobbying and legal bribery. Take away any alternative (like making it a sin to vote for "those awful other guys" and by the very structure of things denying a third option to ever become viable) and you can get away with all that. All while half of folks don't mind voting for Scylla or Charybdis at all.
Of course media made it all worse. But this falls under "times change". And so must constitutions. If they're seen as set in stone, than their evanescence is automatically set in stone as well.

(12-02-2019, 04:36 PM)Dill Wrote: But was it inevitable that, because there are only two effective parties, one should concentrate so many illiberal tendencies within itself, leaving the other to absorb the leftover (lol no pun intended)?

Inevitably, maybe not. It just happened to happen. And "now you have the salad", as a true Austrian would translate it. "The fat's in the fire" is how my translator does. That is the flaw, this reliance on certain things just not happening.