Several of the Democrats I’ve recently talked to about politics have been statists. As a libertarian, I try to find points of agreement with people to keep hostility to a minimum. When I said I thought things like ending US military involvement in the middle east and ending drug prohibition were good ideas, they disagreed with me. Two people even disagreed that the federal government should mandate that gay marriage be legal. At first I was surprised, and then I realized that Obama is a Democrat and holds very similar, non-liberal views.
Has anyone else noticed this? I know there are still real liberals like Jared Polis in the party, but they seem to be a dying breed. Is the Democratic party trending toward a new ideological position? Are actual liberals still comfortable affiliating with it?
Please don’t try to extract an argument from my question; there is none. It’s a real question that has been inspired by my personal observations.
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Are There Any Liberals Left In The Democratic Party?
Posted on October 17, 2011.
no classic liberals, they’re all marxists now. They think it’s cool or something, and when you bring up the genocides they tend to just glaze over
Liberals will always be the biggest statists. They are the ones who push for huge government mandates and high taxes.
Is there anybody left in the Democrat part that isn’t an extreme leftwing liberal nutjob?
You cannot extrapolate the entire Democratic Party by speaking with “several” Democrats.
I personally know of no Democrats who would disagree with ending military involvement in the Middle East. A number of those I know support marijuana legalization but not across the board legalization. Another number support complete legalization (as do I). And there are some fiscally liberal/socially conservative Democrats regarding gay marriage.
There are some tried-and-true liberals left in Congress, but basically the party trends toward moderates.
YES. I was a democrat until the Clinton years and noticed how I didn’t believe like them. They were too socialist for me and the more of thier kind were elected the more uncomfortable I was in my family party of Democrats.
There are only Leftist left in the Democrat party at the national level. The local level is influenced by the policies and money of the national level but they are still good people but struggling to maintain their beliefs.
The political ideology of the DNC is modern liberalism/progressivism.
If you are talking about classic liberals in the DNC, they are a dying bread but are in abundance within the Republican Party. Almost all the Blue Dogs have resigned from congress. Joe Manchin(from what I’ve read) is one of the only Blue Dog Democrats left in congress.
You contradict yourself when you state that you are a “libertarian” and yet you vet for more laws in the name of making certain things “legal”. What both parties have in common is the infusion of F Street cash but the commonality ends there. While the Republican Party has continued down the same path of social conservatism, fiscal when they are pressured to as they were after Obama’s election, and “bigger government in the name of smaller government” (meaning more laws without the actual physical manifestations of a new building to house it), the Democratic Party has been infused with not just money, but ultra-left wing money. Look at the websites of the US Socialist Party, the Communist Party, or even some of the Nazi ones and you will notice a common message and goal among them all: that it is “someones else’s fault”, “them” being the Right, and the defeat of “them”. Look at the groups supporting OWS… My “source” is carrying a sign that will not be broadcast on tonight’s evening news…