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Monday, July 7, 2014

The Week: Ryan Cooper- 'Conservatives Vastly Exaggerate the Unity of the Left'


Source:The Week- from The Week Magazine. Don't ask me to explain the photo.

"In politics as in war, people tend to overestimate the strength of their enemies.

Jonah Goldberg provided a recent example of this, arguing that the left is formidably united while conservatives are not. He may have a point that conservative unity — long a trope in American politics — is overstated, but he is decisively wrong about the degree of liberal unity." 

From The Week

I agree that there isn't a liberal version of the Tea Party as much as I wish there was as a Liberal myself. 

Occupy Wall Street obviously is not it for a few reasons: they are so much smaller because they aren't able to raise money. Because they are not only anti-business, but are much further to the left than the average American voter. Which makes to difficult for them to even raise small contributions because the people who would give them money tend to either work for non-profits, or are political activists generally on the Far-Left. Or are civil service employees who can't afford to make major contributions. Occupy Wall Street represents somewhere between 10-15 percent of the population. Sort of like MSNBC talk. (Pun intended)

But another big one and not so obvious Occupy Wall Street is not a liberal movement. Yes they are on the Left, but certainly not center-left and represents Social Democrats and other Socialists and to a certain extent Anarchists. 

The Democratic Party is a broad-ranging Center-Left party that represents center-left Liberals such as myself. And Far-Left Socialists people like Senator Bernie Sanders who is technically not a Democrat yet because he doesn't believe the Democratic Party is far enough to the left. And FDR New Deal Progressives like Senator Sherrod Brown.

But the thing I'm really interested in is why isn't there a liberal and I mean a real liberal version of the Tea Party. Especially with all the money that is in the Democratic Party with Democrats ability now to raise a lot of money from business's, labor, and individuals. With all of the liberally owned for-profit business's and not just the ones that are in Hollywood, but in Silicon Valley and Seattle and Starbucks. (To use as examples) With all of the wealthy liberal individuals like George Soros, I mean the Democratic Party is now the party that reaches everyone from the lower classes economically to the super wealthy.

It was President Barack Obama that raised the most money from Wall Street in 2012, not Mitt Romney who you think would be Wall Street's best friend. And President Obama is not only the man who pushed for financial reform of Wall Street in his first term, but signed the Dodd-Frank financial reform act of 2010. 

And with the New Democrats taking over the Democratic Party from the New Left McGovernites who took control on the party in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but then lost control of the party in the late 1980s and early 1990s you would think you would see this liberal center-left version of the Tea Party. But that hasn't happened at least yet.

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John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat

John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat
Source: U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960