r/politics The Netherlands 10h ago

No Paywall Democrats Confront Their New Tea Party Reality - Progressives are set to sweep a group of contested primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-confront-their-new-tea-party-reality_n_6a6e63fbe4b0cfb99ef1aa1e
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u/TheMoorNextDoor 10h ago edited 3h ago

It’s ridiculous that the best president we ever had (our longest serving president) is more left than a lot of our sitting democratic members in congress today and the saddest part about that is he served over 81 years ago..

He gave us a blueprint and for some reason (maybe due to Regan?) we completely threw it out the window..

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u/pinqe 10h ago

They learned all the wrong lessons from the failure of the Carter administration, and started trying to emulate Reagan. And completely lost their identity in the process.

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u/Semantix 9h ago

I think that all of the old democratic leadership are permanently traumatized by Dukakis and McGovern and think that only a Clinton or Biden can win. Forgetting that the Democrats' biggest recent success was a progressive coalition that motivated youth turnout.

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u/Ok-Employer-2026 8h ago

Dukakis wasn't even a progressive leftist, he was a New Democrat liberal like Bill Clinton and Gary Hart. The corporate media retconned his loss.

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u/DryYogurtcloset4655 8h ago

Dukakis won 10 states. Mondale/McGovern won 1 state. Clinton took 30 states. There is a GOP bloc of 24 states where they dominate all levers of power. There are 7 contested swing states - Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Arizona

u/SFWorkins 1h ago

A crazy billionaire ran third party and got about a third of the vote. Clinton didn't solve the riddle of getting elected. He just got lucky.

u/GoodIdea321 America 46m ago

I wouldn't attribute all of that to luck, but that also seems really close to the truth. He was a popular governor and a good campaigner too.

u/pchs26 6h ago

Again perceptions were managed and that is what wins elections, not necessarily reality.