sean99
pfm Member
Both parties serve the same elites...at least generally speaking. There were/are some possible exceptions. Dennis Kucinich was one, but it's been a decade or so since he was in Congress. But, anyway, both parties receiving funding from the same mostly corporate sources...many of whom support both parties.
Unlike the UK, the US has mostly elected non-Republican federal governments over the last few decades. From the 1992 election on, Democrats have won the popular vote for president 7 out of 8 times (W. Bush's 2004 victory being the exception). 2000 and 2016 were both cases where the Democrats ran dreadful party loyalist candidates and just barely lost deciding states in the EC. Even still, Democrats have had the presidency for 18 years since that 1992 election (8 years for Clinton, 8 for Obama, Biden is on his 2nd year and will have 2 more) compared to 12 for Republicans. Democrats have had majorities in Congress several times during that period as well.
But, yet, the US has moved rightward during those years. Democrats have failed to pass progressive legislation which would naturally pull the Republican Party leftward. For example, FDR's New Deal era, along with Johnson's Great Society programs, introduced legislation so popular that the right-wingers cannot eliminate it. In fact, Republican presidents post-Johnson, Nixon and Ford at least, actually worked to expand things such as Medicare and Medicaid! Eisenhower led some work which eventually led to Medicare. Nixon implemented some of the greatest environmental reforms seen in the US. The conservatives were pulled leftward by strong social programs.
But, yet, we don't get much of that today. Even though the governments of FDR and Johnson were constrained financially in a way which is not the case today, what we get are excuses for austerity from the Democrats (and Republicans)...at least when it comes to social spending. Military misadventures and corporate subsidization are different stories, of course.
This analysis completely ignores the fact that control of the presidency alone is not sufficient to make meaningful policy changes, and that Clinton and Obama only had a cooperative Senate for their first two years. Compare that to FDR.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/25/control-house-and-senate-1900/
The US system of government just doesn't work when the senate is determined to oppose the President, as has been the case since the 1990s whenever a democratic president has faced a republican senate.
I believe Obama squandered his first two years in office, perhaps out of naivety ? I think Biden has done a reasonable job given that he effectively has an opposing senate (Manchin and Sinema may rot in hell). The democrats proposed expansive spending bills during Biden's term but Manchin and Sinema have held them all hostage for their personal enrichment.
Campaign finance laws are totally broken in the US, allowing corporations to pay off a handful of key senators from either party and stall any unfavorable legislation - hence the gridlock on healthcare, climate. However, let's not forget that, under Trump, the republicans came very close to dismantling the ACA, which would have removed non-emergency healthcare access from tens of millions. Meanwhile democrats have worked to try to expand the ACA.
I would also like a more left wing democratic party, but let's not pretend there is any equivalence between the two parties. The democrats are a broad party of center right to left leaning (AOC, Warren, Sanders) politicians, where the republicans have spent 30 years becoming a party of far-right, white nationalist, misogynist, boot lickers of the ultra rich.