I wish there were more people around here who remembered 1994 better.  There is a direct fucking line between the GOP freakout when Clinton was elected, Gingrich’s harnessing of that tantrum, and where we are today.  You are 100% correct.

Absolutely!  When I say I’m fiscally conservative, I mean all for a program (and using taxes to fund said program) if you can prove it works and isn’t subject to fraud and abuse.  I want to find answers to these issues, and am willing to listen to anyone who has suggestions, but with skepticism.  

How about we start by reforming the system so we can limit fraud and find a way to integrate these programs into job search programs (for those who can work) and start to make it so that just getting a job doesn’t mean any assistance is cut off?

Heh...if you’d read my posts you’d know I am for socialist programs that help the poor. I vote Democrat.

A more accurate answer is “politically, it was a different world back then.”

I’ll also concede that marshalling support in the form of votes is more important. I just think that we have some cultural and philosophical shifts to make in this country. That *does* require more artful discourse.

That’s really not how it works. It’s possible to want the government to spend less money and still spend money on social programs.

Recognizing bloat in the bureaucracy and wanting it to stop is “fiscally conservative”. Knowing the government could spend less money, but still help more people if they just audited the…

“If only Democrats would have stuck with their original ideals; like Jim Crow and segregation.”
 
 This is grade school level revisionism

Richard Fucking Nixon gave us Title IX, the EPA, an all-volunteer army, wage and price controls, and a bunch of other things that now sound impossibly left-wing. In terms of actual policy he wasn’t hugely different from what Humphrey would’ve done.

I don’t disagree with anything in your post, and having grown up in Gary I’ve certainly seen my fair share of oppression.

That’s true, and I think that’s what both political parties have gone all-in on. Just bash the other side and make them look as terrible as possible so nothing you do poorly looks bad by comparison.

If only Democrats would have stuck with their original ideals; like Jim Crow and segregation. Dems didn’t just suddenly appear in the 1960's. they were also around in the 1860's and had a completely different take on the world.

Versus what we have now? Look, I would love if both parties came together and realized, “hey, neither of us is going to get everything that we want, so let’s compromise,” but one specific party has been clear that they’re not playing that game.

So glad to know I don’t exist. I can stop paying all these bills.

The center has stayed in the center.  The left keeps moving further left which makes it seem that way.  

Quote for truth. Trump won on personality and empty promises, not on detailed policies and a winning track record.  You could argue that’s how Obama got the ticket instead of Hillary initially. 

This is long on abstract bashing of a well worn stereotype, but a bit short on citing specific thing that specific candidates have said that you believe are centrist triangulation. But besides all that, we’re down to a very small number of primaries at this point. The candidates, with a few exceptions, are who they…

If there’s anything “good” about the Trump era, it’s the withering of even an attempt at masking the virulent racism and reactionary cruelty at the heart of the USA; while that’s of course a horrible thing in and of itself, it also invites its own corrective. The American “left” is a fucking joke and has been for a…

I should not have to point out, on Lifehacker of all places, that anecdotes are not data and extraordinary claims like “the statistics are wrong” require extraordinary evidence. This is not just me being pedantic: stories like this are fine when presented as “hey look at this cute thing” but when you present them as…

Your comment hit me in the feels. All the best to you.