How about those elections?

[Aielyn]

thranx said:

Aielyn said:
As an Australian, I'd like to say that, if you think Obama is "extreme left", then you are completely and utterly wrong. By the standards of most of the world, Obama is a right-winger. He's closer to centre than the Republicans by a fair margin... but the Republicans have moved so far to the right that I'm pretty sure that, if they were in Smash Bros, they'd have already been KOed. There are few Democrats who could legitimately even call themselves left-wing (with Elizabeth Warren being the only one I know off the top of my head).

What's more, the election result is pretty obviously an example of republicans being lying manipulators and democrats being too spineless to stand up to the republicans. Even from Australia, it's obvious that Democrats have spent their whole time running away from what should be a strong platform - lower deficit, lower jobless rate, stronger economy, better healthcare coverage at a lower cost (both to the individual and to the government), etc. And all of that with a hostile House that refused to compromise on anything.

Rather than actually emphasising these points to the electorate, the Democrats let the Republicans define the terms of the election, and ran away from Obama's record. And they should have been emphasising that, if voters get out there and support them, they can achieve even better things if given the chance. Instead, all of the talk was about how they needed to minimise their losses.

In short, the Democrats lost the moment that they decided that it was a matter of trying to "hold onto the senate" rather than going full-force towards reclaiming the house.

The Labor party here in Australia did a similar thing - instead of talking up their achievements at the last election, and emphasising a bold vision for the country, they instead let the Liberal party (the Liberals are a conservative party) define the terms of the election, and seemed to keep trying to reduce the gap between the two parties, with things like anti-asylum attitudes. They lost, massively, as a result.

Not going to lie. I dont focus too much on global politics. I know america is more conservative than other countries as a whole. Democrats and repulicans here have not moved to the right though. We just started farther on the right when the nation was born. Since the begning of our nation all government policies and political parties have moved to the left. Its the only direction they could go, we we're as right as we could get in the begining. No pun intended.

But Obama, and the dems that supported him, are as far left as i have ever seen. I even live in CA one of the most left states there is. The reason that the dems failed is that their policies have failed. America is a country with 350 million people, it can not be controlled by a centralized government in washington that is too far removed from the people. The dems, the federal government, and big government repubs are feeling the backlash of voters who do not feel their voices heard. The federal government should not be dealing with many things that they are. Most things should be left on a city, county, or state level. That way when a government program fails, it wont be a failure for the whole country. It also makes it easier for people who live close together to get problems solved for their area as they dont have to deal with convincing an entire nation to change poliies or views, only their surrounding neighbors.

 

for the bold and underlined- Its the fact that those policies have failed that the dems lost. Obamacare did not lead to lower costs or more coverage. it lead to higher cost and less coverage. the economy is not better, unemployment is down yes, but that is a non statistic do to the way they calculate it. we have more people not working now than we should, they are just not counted as unemplyed since they are no longer looking for work. the defict is not lower, its far higher than it has ever been. Not sure were you are reading that health care, the economy, or deficit has improved. Besides them failing at their own policies, they have left our allies in need. look at ukraine, look at israel. I dont know how safe europeaons feel with russions knocking at the door.

Actually, American politics have swung FAR to the right relative to where they were just 30 years ago. If Reagan were in politics today, he'd be a democrat. Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, was more left-wing than most Democrats today (many of his speeches wouldn't be out of place in the Occupy Wall Street movement). JFK, one of America's most well-regarded presidents, would be straight-out called a "commie" by all Republicans today, if here were around today. Nixon's policies are quite comparable to those of the Democrats today. Even as America itself has become significantly more progressive in terms of things like gay marriage, civil rights, etc, your politics have moved so far to the right it's not funny.

Meanwhile, your bolded text demonstrates how much the Democrats failed to emphasise the facts. "Obamacare", or the Affordable Care Act, has resulted in somewhere near 9 million people having coverage who otherwise wouldn't have (and that's the 18-64 age bracket - it doesn't count all of the children who now have coverage). While health care costs have continued to increase for the government, that increase has been slower than in the past, and the ACA is one of the contributing factors to that slower growth (it's not the only factor). And based on statistics collected regarding popular opinion on the ACA's provisions and personal impacts of the various provisions shows that the vast majority of Americans have benefited from it (and yet, when asked for their opinion on "Obamacare", popular opinion is far more negative - "Obamacare" is seen much more negatively than any of its provisions, and much more negatively than "the Affordable Care Act").

When Obama came to power, the Dow Jones was below 8000, at a 14 year low. It's now at about 17,500, so that average growth has been about 14% per year (compare with Bush's first 6 years, prior to the recession, during the housing bubble and related booms - it went from about 11,000 to about 12,500). Per-capita GDP under Obama has increased by more than 1% per annum, despite the fact that he inherited a recession (it dropped by 5% between July 2008 and June 2009 alone).

In terms of absolute number of jobs, there are more than 5 million more jobs in the US today than when Obama took office (and that's despite the fact that, in the first 6 months, the recession caused 3 million jobs to be lost, so his net impact is more like 8 million). There is certainly a problem with long-term unemployment (which is up somewhere around 1.5 million), but that's more about other factors (like companies not wanting to hire people who are long-term unemployed, for various reasons). 5 million more jobs isn't a misleading statistic at all. And while you certainly do have more people not working than you should, when I referred to the "jobless rate", I wasn't talking about the "unemployment rate", which refers to people who are actively seeking work and receiving social security, I was referring to total number of people without jobs. For comparison, Bush's total for eight years was just over 1 million). Also note that about 3.5 million out of that 5 million happened in his second term... a year and a half of it, so far (working with data from June).

Keep in mind that "deficit" is different from "debt". Deficit refers to the difference between government spending and government revenue. Deficit in Financial Year 2009 (which is the end of the Bush presidency, and the first few months of the Obama presidency, and thus considered a Bush year for finance purposes) was $1.413 trillion, meaning that debt increased by roughly that amount in that year. In each subsequent year (except between 2010 and 2011, when it remained steady), the value has decreased, and in FY 2014, it was down to $483 billion, meaning the deficit is about one third of what it was when Obama took office. What this means is that debt is growing at a slower rate than it was when Obama took office.

These are actual facts. But if you listen to Republicans (and Democrats aren't doing enough to challenge the narrative the Republicans are creating), then you're forgiven for thinking that jobs are worse, economy is worse, healthcare is worse, etc. It is very much like what happened in Australia, as I said. Labor kept Australia out of recession, protected the country, etc... and they lost when the Liberals (conservative party) ran a "debt and deficit" storyline that made out as though Labor had trashed the country's finances, rather than spending in times of trouble.

Any responsible person will spend their savings in times of trouble, and save up in the good times. But right-wing politicians have been getting their talking points from people like Murdoch and the Koch brothers, and spend all of their time talking about how the world needs austerity (the countries that practiced austerity the strongest, like Greece, Italy, and Ireland, all ended up being hit far harder than the rest, while those that practiced stimulus, like Australia, were hit least).