expectations

OMG, The Horror, The Horror

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Tue, 02/28/2017 - 1:08pm

I was initially surprised to see that some voting for the DNC chair feared that Ellison would "push the party too far to the left". "You're kidding, he's mainstream", thought I. Then, the part of my mind that has been a close observer of and sometime participant in history for about 60 years remembered. "Were'nt the self-styled liberals, nearly all of them mainstream Democrats, the folks constantly sushing everybody on the left throughout the late fifties and the sixties?

Democratic Establishment says, 'C'mon under our big tent and get yer diminished expectations right here!'

Submitted by joe shikspack on Thu, 03/10/2016 - 4:15pm

We are in the midst of a moment in American politics where change is possible; as the success of outsider candidates makes clear, a sizable body of the people want real, substantive, paradigm-shifting (perhaps even radical by American standards) change. Given the tenacity and success of establishment candidates, you can see that there are is also a sizable body of people who oppose change that comes in large increments as either unproductive or potentially disruptive.

In the Democratic race, the positions and policies of Sanders and Clinton have been dissected, compared and contrasted - but the key debate is about the kind of change we are to have.

The change debate is the transcendent issue of this contest. The contested issue is whether the American people can demand and have implemented by their "representatives" in government wholesale change, or if they must settle for minor incremental changes described as pragmatic and "progressive" (for people who like to get things done) - because the representatives must ask the permission of the 1% before proceeding.