Progressive Vs Pragmatism

[Zardnaar]

So here in little old NZ political pragmatism has trumped progressive yet again.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...centre--and-the-left-into-election-contention


The clear out

Policy purge: Chris Hipkins cuts a swathe of once trumpeted Government projects

The PM is axing a swathe of Government projects which were once heralded as vital, many relating to the environment and transport.

i.stuff.co.nz

Basically they ditched a heap of Green type policies (after a cyclone even).

In one of the more progressive countries in the world (beaten maybe by the usual suspects Scandinavia, parts of Western Europe).

The reason is realpolitik. Labour was behind in the polls Jacinda stepped down. She was big on kindness, hope etc but came up very short on delivering on much of anything. Great at crisis management but she burnt up all her polical capital in two years going from biggest electoral win (won enough seats to govern solo in proportional system, left had 59% of vote) ever to resigning and polling indicating a change of government.

It's also election year.

Even if you don't agree with me what do you think of my political theory about doing the middle or if you go to far left or right you alienate some of your own voters.

Greens are also polling around 10-11% tbf that's high for them.

Looks like Labour will be running on responsibility government angle and steady as she goes post cyclone recovery. With high inflation and spending needed on cyclone recovery the right can't really run on their go to tax cuts. Empty suits with an empty gas tank.

 

[Gorbles]

What are we discussing here? NZ politics? Or your much-repeated theory about the "extremes of both sides"?

Progressivisim is a part of reality. Pushing them as some kind of opposites is your cross to bear

 

[Zardnaar]

What are we discussing here? NZ politics? Or your much-repeated theory about the "extremes of both sides"?

Progressivisim is a part of reality. Pushing them as some kind of opposites is your cross to bear

Somewhat open ended.

If NZ Labour wins its their third term. Left struggles to winnin other Engish speaking countries it seems short of self inflicted wounds from the right (Scomo, Trump, current conservates, Democrats would almost be our right here).

Edited title you're right not what I was trying to talk about. About a billion dollars in savings being redirected to people on welfare.

 

[Gorbles]

Somewhat open ended.

If NZ Labour wins its their third term. Left struggles to winnin other Engish speaking countries it seems short of self inflicted wounds from the right (Scomo, Trump, current conservates, Democrats would almost be our right here).

Edited title you're right not what I was trying to talk about. About a billion dollars in savings being redirected to people on welfare.

The problem is (like you mention with the Democrats), "the left" is not "the left" in other countries. The lessons learned aren't the same.

I'd argue there's one shared commonality - the fact the right wing (in a lot of countries) is driving itself to further and further extremism in order to justify its own rhetoric. And sometimes "the left" (or more accurately, the centre) follows them (as we've seen in the UK, with Labour quietly adopting Conservative policies over time).

This suggests the problem is with the right, which are in a lot of places in power (the US is basically "right wing" vs. "incredibly right wing"), and in a lot of cases have been for a long time. Who was in power before Arden in NZ? How long were they in power for? How much better or worse did things get under them?

 

[Zardnaar]

The problem is (like you mention with the Democrats), "the left" is not "the left" in other countries. The lessons learned aren't the same.

I'd argue there's one shared commonality - the fact the right wing (in a lot of countries) is driving itself to further and further extremism in order to justify its own rhetoric. And sometimes "the left" (or more accurately, the centre) follows them (as we've seen in the UK, with Labour quietly adopting Conservative policies over time).

This suggests the problem is with the right, which are in a lot of places in power (the US is basically "right wing" vs. "incredibly right wing"), and in a lot of cases have been for a long time. Who was in power before Arden in NZ? How long were they in power for? How much better or worse did things get under them?

National was in power before Ardern. House prices started to explode and they eroded workers rights and doubled down on letting agriculture sectors get away with abusing immigrant workers.

Things mostly didn't change that much though. More of a slow boil. Big ones were 0 hour contracts and 90 day work trials. They also passed fay marriage so go figure.

They dipped their toe in US/UK style politics using dogwhhistles and got annhilated at the polls 2020 election. Jacinda smoked them.

NZ politics is more like the US democrats split into 4 parties the UK/US style nutters get around 1-4% of the vote. Pity the threshold is 5%.

The "far right" types actually on parliament are more libertarian/deregulation types vs conservatives. The ones who are have to keep quiet about it or conservative with a small c.

 

[Kyriakos]

For the last time, there is only one important politician in NZ. The 'ok boomer' girl. And she must become prime minister

 

[uppi]

I'd argue there's one shared commonality - the fact the right wing (in a lot of countries) is driving itself to further and further extremism in order to justify its own rhetoric. And sometimes "the left" (or more accurately, the centre) follows them (as we've seen in the UK, with Labour quietly adopting Conservative policies over time).

This suggests the problem is with the right, which are in a lot of places in power (the US is basically "right wing" vs. "incredibly right wing"), and in a lot of cases have been for a long time.

The question is, why is this not a losing strategy for the right wing. If the political alignment of the electorate was static, they should be getting less and less votes. That does not seem to be happening, so it looks like the voters are also shifting to the right.

Is this a consequence of the actions of the right wing or is the right wing following their voters?

 

[Gorbles]

The question is, why is this not a losing strategy for the right wing. If the political alignment of the electorate was static, they should be getting less and less votes. That does not seem to be happening, so it looks like the voters are also shifting to the right.

Is this a consequence of the actions of the right wing or is the right wing following their voters?

Hard to tell. In the UK, for example, the government is becoming increasingly less accountable to the actual voters, and the FPTP system as we have it reinforces this approach. If you take any "controversial" issue, polling the actual public will in general reveal most people are more ambivalent (or even in support of the thing) than it is presented in government (nevermind by the tabloid newspapers). But people inevitably have to vote for a party, even if that party doesn't ideally represent them. This is a part of the disconnect, I reckon.

But then, over time, it's hard not to have your position shifted by the party you keep feeling the need to vote for. I'm sure there's some opinion-by-osmosis there too.

 

[Angst]

drawing a line in the sand here - progressive politics are pragmatic, both in realpolitik and in functionality.

but yea appeal to pragmatism makes sense; people shift towards/over the middle, not to left of middle. so if we go nonrevolutionary on important issues (and i'm no revolutionary), progressives need to push from the center.

that said, there's a fine line here - there's the crank effect, where the left is middle seeking, and the right is not. i don't think the left appreciates how little the centre right cares about far right being too far right. the right is far more encompassing in its inclusion of disparate and abhorrent ideas, where the centre is often indifferent to abhorrent far right ideas as long as it can push the left out. this has to be taken seriously in realpolitik.

 

[mdl5000]

if you keep calling yourself pragmatic, is that supposed to get people to like you? it's a very relative term. "I'm pragmatic [meaning the other guy is not]"

 

[AmazonQueen]

Whats "pragmatic" is itself an ideological construct and changes over time. WW2 pushed the Overton Window leftwards, Thatcher and Reagan succeeded in pushing it back rightwards and we're still suffering the consequences.

 

[EvaDK]

Pragmatism and progressive policy are not mutually exclusive at all. I know many people exhibiting both qualities.

The 'opposite' of a pragmatist is often labelled as an idealist and vice versa.

 

[PhroX]

The definition of pragmatism, in a political context at least, seems to be "whatever ideology I personally happen to follow"....

 

[Arwon]

This feels like the 15th time you've made this thread

 

[Angst]

i believe pragmatism is a thing. insisting on new labour and neoliberal takeover of social democracy is just not as pragmatic as one might think. the population is not that right schewed.

 

[Zardnaar]

This feels like the 15th time you've made this thread

Well it's election year, new political leader and its not theory talk as I posted the links to what's happened.

Alot of people on ISA seem to think proportional will magically fix everything. It doesn't it drags things to the middle.

It does moderate the left/right.

And NZ Labour won an election without having to have the right shoot themselves in the foot multiple times.

Other side effect of is governing by polling. Unpopular policies get dumped even if they're good policies.

Big problem here isn't the extremes you see in Australia/USA/UK but lots of tinkering by technocrats and kicking the can down the road. For example 26 year old voting is

gonna be next teem and probably won't happen.

Jacinda also seemed popular with progressives overseas, relatively young female left wing leader. But the reality was she was fairly useless at implementing progressive policies (or any policy really) . She was really good at crisis management and her resignation kinda cut the legs out from the right.

 

[mdl5000]

This feels like the 15th time you've made this thread

I can't tell if TC types with a phone or something but it's often hard to read...

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I’m speaking from a US perspective but it holds in most places.

There isn’t really such thing as a political middle, or at least, not one that a politician or party can easily target and represent, because the average voter is a hodgepodge of ideas like “I support free health care, gay marriage, and killing all immigrants and unhoused people.”

But the biggest problem is that people take constant cues form elites; politicians, celebrities, etc., and so the middle is very malleable. I think there is general value in focusing on stuff people like, and downplaying in speeches/public certain policies that you support but that are less popular, but “the middle” is a constantly shifting window based on who is in charge when the economy is good or bad, what’s in the news, etc etc.

The average/median/middle US liberal now supports some form of student loan forgiveness, trans health care, and significantly raising taxes on the wealthy, not at all the ‘middle’ position as recently as 8 years ago. That happened in part via people like Bernie and shifting things by not just running ‘in the middle’ but even that kind of misses the point; voters saw Bernie as more likable and relatable than Hillary in 2016 and Trump as more centrist than both. You can’t really know that until you’re in it. People on civfanatics likely saw Trump for the extremist he was, but the average voter routinely labels women and people of color as less centrist automatically (there is like 100+ years of replicated data on this). That would be an argument for perpetually running old white dudes, but eventually that also gets pushback of a different kind. So it’s all kind of like sand, and not something that I think a lot of people think is easy for some reason. “Oh just run in the middle and win!” We’re talking about politicians. If it was that easy some of these psychopaths would have done that already.

Edit: As an aside; it’s well established that when the left is in charge, support for their policies decline and support for right wing policies improve, and the same thing happens when the right is in charge in that left wing policies get more popular and right wing ones decline. So in that case the middle is just the really old internet joke of a cat with buttered toast on her back

 

[Zardnaar]

I’m speaking from a US perspective but it holds in most places.

There isn’t really such thing as a political middle, or at least, not one that a politician or party can easily target and represent, because the average voter is a hodgepodge of ideas like “I support free health care, gay marriage, and killing all immigrants and unhoused people.”

But the biggest problem is that people take constant cues form elites; politicians, celebrities, etc., and so the middle is very malleable. I think there is general value in focusing on stuff people like, and downplaying in speeches/public certain policies that you support but that are less popular, but “the middle” is a constantly shifting window based on who is in charge when the economy is good or bad, what’s in the news, etc etc.

The average/median/middle US liberal now supports some form of student loan forgiveness, trans health care, and significantly raising taxes on the wealthy, not at all the ‘middle’ position as recently as 8 years ago. That happened in part via people like Bernie and shifting things by not just running ‘in the middle’ but even that kind of misses the point; voters saw Bernie as more likable and relatable than Hillary in 2016 and Trump as more centrist than both. You can’t really know that until you’re in it. People on civfanatics likely saw Trump for the extremist he was, but the average voter routinely labels women and people of color as less centrist automatically (there is like 100+ years of replicated data on this). That would be an argument for perpetually running old white dudes, but eventually that also gets pushback of a different kind. So it’s all kind of like sand, and not something that I think a lot of people think is easy for some reason. “Oh just run in the middle and win!” We’re talking about politicians. If it was that easy some of these psychopaths would have done that already.

Edit: As an aside; it’s well established that when the left is in charge, support for their policies decline and support for right wing policies improve, and the same thing happens when the right is in charge in that left wing policies get more popular and right wing ones decline. So in that case the middle is just the really old internet joke of a cat with buttered toast on her back

Well rhetoric middle xan be roughly described as non extremists and non ideologically mot8vated voters.

US middle is very small probaly a few %.

Here swing voterser are around 15-25%.

When the major parties are popular they hover around the 40's with highs around 47-49%.
When their support folkapse its 25-30%. A few % tend to bleed off to other parties on the left/right the rest cross the isle.

Mostly yhe go for the party with the most popular leader, media coverage etc. If the opposition leader is very incompetent or hard right/left popular support plummets to under 30%.

This happened to the right in 2020 and 2002 and left in 2011/14.

The gardcore party ideologues in bothxases threw up bad leaders who got annhilated. Basically a conservative/neighbor type with fingers in dirty politics and trade unionists types with 0 charisma.

In America it's anyone not to repulsive eg Trump and hardcore progressives cant carry purple stared reliably (maybe if the right throws up a particularly repulsive candidate).