Why Can't The Left Win?

[Zardnaar]

In the Anglosphere?

Is most of the Anglosphere countries the Labour party seems to be in disarray, and in the US the Dems are more centre right at least compared to the rest.

I'm not sure how things are going in Canada.

In NZ the Labour party did win in 2017 although it was kind of a fluke. They panicked changed leaders 6 weeks out from an election and went from low 20's to 37%.

Note they won with a smaller % thant the Dems got in the USA (coalition of three parties).

Australia Labour somehow managed to lose in a country where they had 5 PMs in 5 years.

UK Labour no idea what they're doing. The Conservatives seem to be self districting though along with the GoP.

Here we had the 4th Labour government in the 198Os. Established 1916.... Derp.

Thatcher, Reagan and Rogernomics in NZ gutted them. Not sure on Aussie and Canada there.

Blair and Clinton get criticised for being to centrist or whatever but there was no viable way for a liberal or trade union party to win.

Political lobbying became a thing in the 80s at least in it's modern incarnation. 20 years ago Labour won here and put taxes up by 5% on higher income but they couldn't get tax up this time around as they coalitioned with centrists (option B was no government at all 12 years out of power). Highet tax was reversed around a decade ago when they list the 2008 election (political parties here tend to win 3 terms each term is 3 years).

 

[Zardnaar]

Pt 2

Some reasons

1. They never recovered from the 80s.

2. University educated liberal elites and blue collar trade unionists don't always play nice. Can lead to contradictory messaging.

3. Corporations donate more to the right (Hilary out spent Trump though...)

4. More prone to being disorganized.

5. Policies aimed at the bottom 10% and minorities. Generally only adds up to 30% if the electorate.

6. Rights more united. It's always tax cuts. They'll overlook a lot to get them. Financial incentive to get out and vote for the top 30%.

7. Traditional minorities competing with new migrants who often don't care about social issues.

8. Immigration at least anti immigration works well. Labour here campaigned on less immigration National was open borders (if you have the money). Brexit and GoP. Immigration has not been universally positive.

9. Globalization. See part 8 but things like NAFTA and the rise of China and mechanization have created issues.

10. More prone to fragmenting no single issue to rally around (tax cuts). Major factions would be greens, urban liberals, trade unionists and minorities. And they are each 5%-10%. They tend to focus on issues most people don't really relate to. Who gives a crap about global warming if you're struggling to pay rent.

 

[Josu]

Dramatization of the left where I live

On the other hand, they have centered their aims in some issues which IMHO may be OK, but they have forgotten about big issues such as worker's rigths

 

[hobbsyoyo]

As I've been arguing in the other thread, I think that the fundamental problem in the US is that the left doesn't consistently vote. They see non-ideal candidates as non-starters and thereby hand the election to the Republicans, especially when the Presidency isn't being contested. We tend to see non-ideal candidates as the same as Republicans when that isn't true. I think that at worst we should see non-ideal candidates as enabling us to have smaller victories on the issues we care about, as contrasted to Republicans winning which means we lose on those issues. And with the current GOP, we don't just lose a little on those issues, we lose massively. They are diametrically opposed to practically everything we care about and have shown they're willing to go illegal lengths to roll back progressive initiatives and maintain power.

But it's not entirely the fault of individuals, some of the blame comes down to the way our system is structured. Most states don't have vote-by-mail initiatives and don't give the day off for voting. Since the left tends to skew young, this is a problem as young people often can't take time off to go and vote as easily as older voters who are either retired or have salaried jobs with more schedule flexibility. And federalism itself plays a large role as the millions of additional votes the Democrats get in California are routinely negated in the Senate by the handful of people who live in Wyoming. Plus, the GOP has spent the last two decades rolling out more and more extreme gerrymandering, further exacerbating the structural advantage they have from federalism.

 

[Snerk]

The left is really struggling with their appeal to the masses. They do OK with the middle classes but not the super rich nor the working poor. And guess what, galloping inequalities are really thinning out the ranks of the middle class.

The super rich are easy to figure out. They enjoy being rich and will vote for those who deregulate and cut taxes so they get more and others get less. No brainer.

Why the poor consistently votes against their own economical interests is trickier. If I had to point to one thing I'd point to anger. The alt right is so much better at tapping into the anger of the working class. Sure it's irrational but this is anger we're talking about. Immigrants, islam, cultural elites, environmentalists, identity politics, all perfect patsies for all that anger. Add the perfect catalyst, social media and the internet in general, and the old labour parties doesn't stand a chance.

The left hasn't tapped into the anger of the masses for a long time, and it shows. Who does social democrats wants you to be angry at? Nobody. It's responsibility and solidarity. I wish that was enough to get things stirring but it isn't.

 

[Narz]

The left is really struggling with their appeal to the masses. They do OK with the middle classes but not the super rich nor the working poor. And guess what, galloping inequalities are really thinning out the ranks of the middle class.

The super rich are easy to figure out. They enjoy being rich and will vote for those who deregulate and cut taxes so they get more and others get less. No brainer.

Why the poor consistently votes against their own economical interests is trickier. If I had to point to one thing I'd point to anger. The alt right is so much better at tapping into the anger of the working class. Sure it's irrational but this is anger we're talking about. Immigrants, islam, cultural elites, environmentalists, identity politics, all perfect patsies for all that anger. Add the perfect catalyst, social media and the internet in general, and the old labour parties doesn't stand a chance.

The left hasn't tapped into the anger of the masses for a long time, and it shows. Who does social democrats wants you to be angry at? Nobody. It's responsibility and solidarity. I wish that was enough to get things stirring but it isn't.

A small (but influential) segment of the left wants you to be angry @ yourself.

 

[Arwon]

Australian elections are always within 2 or 3 percent of being 50:50 between the two main parties under compulsory voting and usually whoever isn't in power federally wins most of the state elections (currently there are five Labor and three Liberal governments). So I wouldnt go reading anything permanent into things here.

 

[Arwon]

Then again I probably wouldn't go equating Labor with the left, either.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Labour parties have moved away from the working man's party?

Here the unions still dominate the selection process but they changed the criteria as they kept putting up union types with 0 electability.

The last one was smart enough to recognize this and stood down 6 weeks out from election and Labour won. They can't do anything drastic atm but they can influence the electorate better than being out of power plus the usual benefits of being in power.

 

[Josu]

BTW, I forgot to mention that in the Basque Country and in Spain there is a Socialist Party wich actually is more liberal than socialist.
If you are leftish only in the name it can happen that the voters stay at home

 

[Hehehe]

In Finland, the traditional center-left party, the social democratic party, just got their worst election result in a long, long time in the most recent elections. There are a lot of reasons for their failures, but I'd say that the biggest is that they've abandoned their voter base. No-one seems to know what the social democrats stand for anymore, and not even the social democrats themselves seem to know. They used to be a party for the working class, but in the 2000's they shifted focus to educated urban voters for some reason while also abandoning the working class. They started advocating for mass migration, which directly hurts their existing voter base (the working class), since the laws of supply and demand apply to workforce too. It also puts a strain on the welfare state, which is another thing social democrats have fought for. Some of the working class people who used to vote for SDP (social democratic party) feel abandoned by the party. They feel like their opinions haven't shifted since the 70's, but the party has. Now they get flak from their party for views which used to be mainstream. Right now, in Finland, the social democratic party is trying to appeal to new voters by appealing to pensioners (a lot of pensioners vote for them out of old habit). It remains to be seen how this strategy will work, because it seems like the interests of pensioners are kinda in opposition to the interests of working people, and pensioners are a voter base that is dying.

TL;DR: the old center left doesn't seem to know what they stand for

 

[MaryKB]

Democrats won our federal elections last year, taking the House of Representatives away from Republicans.

 

[Zardnaar]

Democrats won our federal elections last year, taking the House of Representatives away from Republicans.

True they're benefitting from Trump being Trump.

I think things are looking good for 2020 but we'll see.

IDK what will happen to the GoP long term or Conservatives in the UK.

Outside looking in wondering how it's not a blowout.

 

[Lexicus]

The Left hardly exists anymore.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

At least in the US, the right has a tendency to cheat their asses off. Lately this involves trying to solicit foreign interference in our elections but more traditionally they try and prevent poor people and people of color from voting and building districts such that the right can't lose.

 

[Snerk]

The Left hardly exists anymore.

No we're still around. The left recently won an national election in Denmark. They did very well in local elections in my neck of the woods. But in the larger scope we've been taking a beating for some time now. There's no quick fix. But if the left is to make a comeback, it will mean getting people involved, people from all walks of society. And with a high tolerance for disagreements in some aspects, as long as we're working together for a common goals like more equality and more sustainability. Sounds a bit cheesy but there it is.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I think a lot of efforts by the Right in this country rely on misinformation, so they work to promote ignorance. It's not a coincidence that the Republican Party attacks education and the media. There are poor and working-class Americans who still, in 2019, think tax cuts for the rich and for corporations will benefit everyone. It was called "trickle-down economics" a generation ago, and there are people who still buy it, even if they can't name it. Maybe a year ago, I heard a woman on the radio who said she was a nurse in one of the Upper Midwest states, Minnesota or Michigan, I can't remember which. She said she was in favor of cutting taxes to the wealthy and to corporations, because that would spur hiring and wage increases and promote spending (she meant capital investment, but didn't know what to call it) and all the rest. She didn't use the term "trickle-down", but that's what she was describing. In 2018. We've known for years that it's complete bollocks, as our friends across the Atlantic would say, but if people have been told their whole lives that the Sun orbits the Earth, then that's what they believe. And again, it's not a coincidence that the Right in this country defunds education and demonizes those who have some as "elitist" and intolerant. And of course when a tool like Hilary Clinton calls the people who've been sold Snake Oil for 50 years "deplorables", it plays right into the hands of the same people defunding education. I saw an article recently about public school teachers scrounging with 2nd jobs just to make ends meet.

Just one, little example:
NY Times, 5 June 2017 - "Feeding young minds: The importance of school lunches"
USA Today, 29 July 2019 - "500,000 could lose free school lunches under Trump administration proposal"

I mean, you don't need to be a genius to see what they're doing. And again, this isn't coincidence, it's a concerted, sustained effort to keep people uninformed, misinformed, and generally stupid. I've been told by people on the Left that education "isn't a 'silver bullet'", but it must be a bullet of some sort, because the Right is terrified of an educated electorate.

(I'm speaking of the US here, because that's where I live, but it's not just us. iirc, Boris Johnson's efforts to promote Brexit have included bald-faced lies, founded on the supposition that the British public wouldn't know the difference. If I were to dig into a few of the claims made by Jair Bolsonaro or Viktor Orban, what does one suppose I might find?)

 

[Lexicus]

I think a lot of efforts by the Right in this country rely on misinformation, so they work to promote ignorance.

Yes, this is a large part of the point here. The right has always thrived when people are ignorant. The basic problem of conservatism in the modern era is that the tools historically used by conservatives to suppress the population, such as ensuring that only a tiny elite knew how to read, are not remotely compatible with the demands of a modern economy.

Public relations has stepped into the gap, manipulating information rather than suppressing it, and drowning people under such a deluge of lies that it's exhausting to simply keep up with the lies let alone refute them all.

 

[El_Machinae]

Evil will always win, because Good is Dumb

 

[Lexicus]

Evil will always win, because Good is Dumb

'So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.'