Spot on. I feel like my entire adult life has been Groundhog Day in Democratic politics.
* Spent the entire mid/late 1990s lurching hard to the right - crime bills, welfare reform, massive deregulation of finance and industry, and huge neoliberal trade bills - that gave a temporary deceptive economic boost soon followed by a crash and setting the stage for a completely fukked up economy (and globe) in the 2000s. But when all their pandering failed to win them the presidency in 2000, they blamed.....a few thousand leftist voters for the Greens rather than the tens of millions of Democrats who hadn't voted at all.
* Spent the early 2000s lurching HARDER to the right, with many establishment dems joining forces with Republicans on some of Bush's most radical changes to the nation (huge tax cuts, the industry giveaway called Medicare Part D, War on Iraq, Patriot Act, and No Child Left Behind). Then in 2004 they pushed aside the liberal hopefuls to nominate a milquetoast moderate instead....and when he lost predictably (as there was little image-wise to even distinguish him from Bush, just another rich white capitalist who supported the war in Iraq), the Dems blamed....the Greens again.
* In 2008 the economic crash hand-delivered the White House to them (with most voters forgetting how establishment dems had done just as much as Republicans to set the stage for the crash). Still, they tried everything possible to say Obama was too liberal for the presidency and have their chosen establishment candidate in that space instead. Thankfully Obama had the personal charisma and feel-good story to overcome even the Democratic establishment for once, and won handily anyway on the most liberal message in decades.
* Of course, Obama immediately turns to the Empire and nominates a bunch of Wall Street insiders and retreds to handle economic policy, then lets the bankers off scot-free while the American poor still suffered. Obamacare fails to reform heath care (it only expands it) and is as much a giveaway to industry as it is to the uninsured, which is why even industry ends up backing it. And of course any substantial movement on civil rights or other major liberal priorities is seen as pushing too far because only the economy matters. Does it work? What do the massive congressional losses in 2010 tell you?
* 2016 and eight years of Obama's centrism (more free trade agreements, more foreign wars, more putting off reform until later) has American voters pretty unenthusiastic for Democrats in election year. Bernie Sanders runs a campaign with surprising enthusiasm despite starting late and having the entire establishment against him. Democrats completely shut him down with a mix of dirty moves and general force, put forth yet another centrist instead, then luck out by getting one of the all-time WOAT presidential candidates on the other side. She fumbles the fukk out of the bag in the biggest general election upset of our lifetimes. Who do the Democrats blame? Sanders, of course, despite Sanders wholeheartedly supported Clinton in the general (and despite a higher % of Sanders voters supporting Clinton in the general than Clinton voters had supported Obama in 2008).
* Trump fukks up 2020 so bad that the election should have been a gimme. The economy was fukked. The response to Covid was fukked. The response to Black injustices was fukked. The momentum was ALL for the left. Bernie comes into the primaries and starts crushing the buildings, all the momentum is behind him, he has genuine enthusiasm from independent voters, left-wing voters, 3rd-party voters, young voters, brown voters, working-class rust belt voters - all groups that the Democrats had been losing the trust of recently. Do the Dems double down on that energy? Of course not. Instead, the entire establishment throws its weight behind a guy who had finished 4th in Iowa (half of Bernie's support), 5th in New Hampshire (1/3 of Bernie's support), and a distance 2nd in Nevada (less than 1/2 of Bernie's support). A guy who had sucked ass in multiple previous presidential elections. A guy who had looked like shyt in the debates and who had been making nonsensical diversions and falsehoods in stump speeches. A guy who didn't even have the energy to campaign frequently and who didn't even want to because there was no enthusiast base for him anyway. A guy whose entire record was the polar opposite of the BLM energy sweeping the nation, whose entire persona was the opposite of the movement the young and the left (especially the young left black and brown) were feeling to actually change something in this country. But the establishment wanted him elected, so he got elected. Trump was fukking up the economy, fukking up with Covid, fukking up with BLM, and the vote-by-mail was a godsend for Democratic turnout. It should have been a fukking blowout.....and yet Biden barely squeaks through, badly underperforming compared to polling #'s. After all those advantages the election was basically a tossup - Biden won 4 out of 4 states decided by 1.1% or less, if Trump had won any 3 of them, the presidency would have been his.
Now Biden is having a hell of a time with the American people, in large part due to the same deficiencies that made it so hard for him to win presidential contests in the first place - he speaks poorly, makes lots of errors, brings no enthusiasm, and no one except for moderate establishment dems is convinced he's on their side. Who do the Democrats blame for this predictable turn of events?
They blame....wait for it.....wait for it.....THE LEFT!!!!
Like I said, fukking groundhog day. Except Bill Murray actually tried to improve himself and get better, while these old-ass self-serving establishment democrats never fukking learn.
