Democratic Party's left-wing insurgency hits a wall in Midwest primaries - Polidicks

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-partys-liberal-insurgency-hits-a-wall-in-midwest-primaries/2018/08/08/422f0140-9a50-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html The Democratic Party’s left-wing insurgency found its limits Tuesday night, with voters favoring establishment candidates over more liberal challengers in almost every closely watched race across several states. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), signs of a tea-party-like movement in the Democratic Party that would throw winnable races to far-left candidates appear to be fading. Instead, the party’s establishment has embraced ideas like expanding the Affordable Care Act, shrinking the space between its leaders and its disrupters. “Trump has been the great doctor, stitching up our scars and healing us organically,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. The party’s centrists, who had bemoaned Crowley’s defeat, saw Tuesday night as a turning point. Whitmer, who ran on her record of expanding Medicaid in Michigan — and a memorable promise to “fix the damn roads” — will now lead an all-female ticket in a swing state that Hillary Clinton narrowly lost.

get me out of this madhouse

I've legit wondered about moving to the UK even with Brexit going on, or somewhere in Western Europe recently. Or even Canada, since it's closer. I understand they've all got their own issues, things ain't perfect in any of those places either, but good lord. It feels like ever since Trump was elected, Murphy's Law got thrown into overdrive.

As far as English speaking countries go, Canada, and to some degree Sweden are probably your best bets for emigration. The UK will be a living nightmare by March next year, especially for foreign people. You'd just be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire by going there. And I guess there's also Australia if you don't mind the climate and the local wildlife that much.

New zealand is real nice, it does feel what I imagine an "ideal" america (I'm a brit who's never been to America) to be like - Small friendly communities, lots of ranch land, all houses being detached, less rules than UK, nice weather.

What are you on about, this is actually good news. While the Republican party has gradually shifted towards the political fringe over the past ten years, the Democratic party has resisted the temptation to do the same; they are continuing to field moderate candidates who would have broader support with the general public (eg Doug Jones elected in Alabama), as opposed to eg democratic socialists who would only have support among the most hardcore of left-leaning voters. Just imagine how screwed American politics would be if both of its main parties only occupied the political fringes, with little to no representation of the rational, political midfield. Hopefully, victories of moderate Democrats in general elections will encourage the Republicans to move away from the fringe and back to the centre. Say no to political extremism - both on the left and right.

Man, it’s almost like a decently sized chunk of people leaning democrat were FINE with things the way they were before 2016.

I think Ireland is an underrated choice for emigration. The crazies seem to be getting pretty consistently outvoted, and there's been no populist insurgency there AFAIK

Pretty much, when it comes to english-speaking places my top choice is definitely NZ with Canada as a close second. I'd probably avoid aus and UK personally but eh. The economy isn't super developed, a bit like aus iirc? It might be a bit harder to get a job anywhere near as good as what you'd find in say, the US or Canada there. That is one strange thing about the "emigrate out of america to escape drumpf" thing, if you have the means to do it... quite often that means that you're one of the upper-middle class people who're doing wonderful in the US. E.g. programmer wages in the UK are a joke compared to what's available in the US.

Irish citizenship is relatively easy to obtain and it's worth it purely for the EU citizenship. We're also accepting of immigrants and we're an English speaking country. However the rent is really fucking high in Dublin where all the jobs are so i'd advise you to rent a flat out in Meath/ Kildare/ Louth and use public transport to go to university or work. If you're going here for political reasons you'll find our two main parties are literally the exact same ideologically with both being centre-right. They're not too crazy and even though they are a bit stupid they're reasonable enough Info on getting citizenship: http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/citizenship

It seems to be fairly normal if you don't have birthright citizenship. Though every american claims Irish heritage so uh... guess there's that lol Under Irish law, you are not required to give up citizenship of another country to become an Irish citizen. that is actually pretty damn nice tbh.

that's why it's so useful. you basically get a free pass to the EU and you can retain your native country's citizenship so it's a best of both worlds sort of thing.

Being in the middle is not inherently rational, especially since the "middle" of anything is relative.

Because the Far Left(at least the far left engaged in politics) is not a mirror image of the far right? The far right wants to kill every single government program, the far left wants healthcare for all. Whatever gets the democratic base in each state engaged I guess. But bipartisanship compromise has hardly fired up people in the past.

Move to Montréal. Okay rent, good food, great chicks. Scorching summers and freezing winters, though. Plus you're eligible for full provincial universal healthcare coverage after just a 3-month waiting period after registering (which is much shorter than I previously thought).

Why would they do that when right wing populism is a winning strategy the last decade

if you think the candidates in question here are fringe extremists then you've got no clue what you're talking about. this is most certainly a bad thing. abdul el-sayed, ocasio cortez etc etc are not wild leftists, they're fairly moderate centre left candidates.

This is fine. The further left candidates have forced to party to move further left in a lot of ways, this isn't a loss.

I imagine my (at least temporary) problem with that though is I'd have to make sure to learn French. A sizable chunk of folks in Montréal and Quebec tend to speak more French than English, right?

Only, it only really seems to be working in the Republican party's favour. People don't want "moderate" candidates that will maintain the status quo. They want to see change. Trump is ridiculous enough to look like change even when he's the most establishment player on the field, and as dumb as it is, people are actually excited for him.

Yet people voted for the moderate candidate this time.

You'll be fine. Montreal is a very bilingual, most people I've met will freely switch in between french and English. I've been living here for almost 4 years and my French is almost non-existent. You would have problems going to the burbs or other parts of Quebec though.

Centrism isn't some permanently stuck ideology full of rationality. The center swings along with the Overton window, the US is so deeply right wing it's current left wing candidates are right wing to the rest of the west. The US far left is about equal to Britain's center left and we are one of the most right wing countries in western Europe. Your far right is currently waging war on the free press, denying climate change, creating camps for migrant kids, gutting every single program, waging war on democracy and embracing naked fascism. Your far left wants to bring the US healthcare into the 21st century, stop treating minorities like shit and give workers some decent rights enjoyed elsewhere.

Roughly 50% of the population in Montréal can speak english. Learning french is a nice luxury and is more useful the further away you go from the metropolitan area but broadly speaking you can live without it in the city. My downstairs neighbor moved here from Ontario two years ago and he literally doesn't speak any French.

Whitmer is actually not very centrist, she's quite progressive. If you actually look at their plans her and El Sayed's policies are very similar.

These just sound like general left things. None of these are really exclusive to the far left

Yeah centrist democrats have been pulled further left and are supporting Medicare for All now. That's why its not so bad if the DSA candidates lose, they're doing good work by just existing.

I think that was his point. Mighty AU called these very mild lefties FRINGE EXTREMISTS. They absolutely are just general left things.

These candidates aren't more left than your standard European Social Democrats, if anything, they might be even more right, but by US standards, anyone left of center is a communist since of years of coldwar propaganda. Democratic party is doing nothing but listening to their corporate donors, while we need things like universal healthcare, since corporations made private healthcare cost more than it would cost us if we had medicaid for all.

Small steps really I'm hoping for a coalition that includes Berniecrats right now, the democrats led by Hiliary basically sidelined them and I think its one of the reasons they lost since it killed turnout. Would I prefer a democrat party led by people with more social policies? Yes. But the reality is many democrats voters consider themselves moderates who consider the GOP rhetoteric too crazy but at the same time are easily scared with fearwords like "socalism". You have to acknowledge thats the way it is right now one way or another. And right now we need to get the facists wing of the GOP out of power before its too late.