You don’t get to spend all day conflating liberals and neoliberals and then just de-conflate them whenever you want.
I’m personally very careful about not conflating liberalism with neoliberalism, but it’s an easy mistake to make so I just went back to check if I did that anywhere here, and there is not one instance in this whole conversation where I made it. If there was any confusion whatsoever, it was in your own head.
You damn Leftists have spent 10 years pretending that liberal = neoliberal.
Classic bad faith argument. Now I’m supposed to answer for all “damn Leftists” (thanks for finally taking the mask off BTW) over 10 years? Let’s see how you do answering for every bit of idiocy that came out of just Biden’s mouth in the last 10 years, nevermind the entire neoliberal establishment.
Neoliberals are fucking Republicans. Bush, Cheney, Romney. If you’re talking about neoliberal policy, then this whole conversation has little to do with Democrats.
Obama’s greatest achievement was the implementation of a healthcare plan designed by the same Heritage Foundation that brought us Project 2025. For the cost of fixing some truly barbaric inadequacies of the previous system, it also massively accelerated the flow of wealth in this country to big corporations. The whole point of the system was that the establishment saw populist demands for healthcare reforms as a threat, and they needed to make the smallest concessions they could while cementing the hold of capital over the healthcare system. It worked just as intended, but the discontent didn’t go away. Then there were the bank bailouts and the complete lack of consequences for bankers and CEOs that gambled with the entire economy, but that one is so easy that it almost seems unfair to mention it. If you google “first neoliberal president”, there doesn’t seem to be much disagreement about the title belonging to Carter. Clinton was arguably the most neoliberal President. Reagan presided over the biggest neoliberal shift, but Clinton took it marginally further. “The era of big government is over.” came from Bill Clinton before he drove the biggest reduction in the history of the federal safety net until (maybe) the current presidency.
So let’s get this shit straight right now: are we talking about Democrat policies and politicians, or Republican policies and politicians?
If you line up the economic philosophies of Obama and Mitt Romney, the differences are vanishingly small. Up until that point, “both sides” arguments legitimately had a whole lot of juice. The only real departure was the reliance of Republican rhetoric on selling hate. Even that was pretty recent, since the Defense of Marriage act passed in 1996 with overwhelming bi-partisan support. Biden was almost entirely on the side of Republicans for most of his time in congress. As I said above, I certainly acknowledge that he made some significant improvements in his tenure as president.
Plural “you”. I treat Leftists as interchangeable, since you all parrot the same talking points. Like how suddenly everyone forgot about Gaza.
And hang on, are you really suggesting Obamacare increased economic inequality?
Yes, Democrats are pro-business. Many of them moreso than I (or most Democrats) would like. But there is a significant wing of the Democrats that constantly push for more regulation and trust busting, higher taxes on the rich, more benefits for the poor. Everything you want, short of full worker ownership of the means of production (and some are in favor of that too). This wing is not in control of the Democratic party because of two reasons: 1. until the MAGA takeover, compromise was necessary with Republicans to get legislation passed and people elected; and 2. Leftists refuse to vote, so the progressive wing of the Democratic party has a dramatically smaller base than it should.
But that’s a bit of a tangent. It is entirely possible to have both a liberal economic philosophy AND a strong government to check businesses. Europe has been doing it for generations. Liberal economic philosophy is not the problem. The problem is Republicans - both the business interests capturing the government, and the reactionaries tearing the government down. And now, recently, the outright fascists trying to remake the government into a tool of oppression. None of these are inherent facets of liberal economics. They’re something that can be and need to be kept in check, and we are failing to do so. If anything, they’re inherent facets of any economic paradigm, and whatever you want to replace liberalism with will have to deal with them too.
I’m personally very careful about not conflating liberalism with neoliberalism, but it’s an easy mistake to make so I just went back to check if I did that anywhere here, and there is not one instance in this whole conversation where I made it. If there was any confusion whatsoever, it was in your own head.
Classic bad faith argument. Now I’m supposed to answer for all “damn Leftists” (thanks for finally taking the mask off BTW) over 10 years? Let’s see how you do answering for every bit of idiocy that came out of just Biden’s mouth in the last 10 years, nevermind the entire neoliberal establishment.
Obama’s greatest achievement was the implementation of a healthcare plan designed by the same Heritage Foundation that brought us Project 2025. For the cost of fixing some truly barbaric inadequacies of the previous system, it also massively accelerated the flow of wealth in this country to big corporations. The whole point of the system was that the establishment saw populist demands for healthcare reforms as a threat, and they needed to make the smallest concessions they could while cementing the hold of capital over the healthcare system. It worked just as intended, but the discontent didn’t go away. Then there were the bank bailouts and the complete lack of consequences for bankers and CEOs that gambled with the entire economy, but that one is so easy that it almost seems unfair to mention it. If you google “first neoliberal president”, there doesn’t seem to be much disagreement about the title belonging to Carter. Clinton was arguably the most neoliberal President. Reagan presided over the biggest neoliberal shift, but Clinton took it marginally further. “The era of big government is over.” came from Bill Clinton before he drove the biggest reduction in the history of the federal safety net until (maybe) the current presidency.
If you line up the economic philosophies of Obama and Mitt Romney, the differences are vanishingly small. Up until that point, “both sides” arguments legitimately had a whole lot of juice. The only real departure was the reliance of Republican rhetoric on selling hate. Even that was pretty recent, since the Defense of Marriage act passed in 1996 with overwhelming bi-partisan support. Biden was almost entirely on the side of Republicans for most of his time in congress. As I said above, I certainly acknowledge that he made some significant improvements in his tenure as president.
Plural “you”. I treat Leftists as interchangeable, since you all parrot the same talking points. Like how suddenly everyone forgot about Gaza.
And hang on, are you really suggesting Obamacare increased economic inequality?
Yes, Democrats are pro-business. Many of them moreso than I (or most Democrats) would like. But there is a significant wing of the Democrats that constantly push for more regulation and trust busting, higher taxes on the rich, more benefits for the poor. Everything you want, short of full worker ownership of the means of production (and some are in favor of that too). This wing is not in control of the Democratic party because of two reasons: 1. until the MAGA takeover, compromise was necessary with Republicans to get legislation passed and people elected; and 2. Leftists refuse to vote, so the progressive wing of the Democratic party has a dramatically smaller base than it should.
But that’s a bit of a tangent. It is entirely possible to have both a liberal economic philosophy AND a strong government to check businesses. Europe has been doing it for generations. Liberal economic philosophy is not the problem. The problem is Republicans - both the business interests capturing the government, and the reactionaries tearing the government down. And now, recently, the outright fascists trying to remake the government into a tool of oppression. None of these are inherent facets of liberal economics. They’re something that can be and need to be kept in check, and we are failing to do so. If anything, they’re inherent facets of any economic paradigm, and whatever you want to replace liberalism with will have to deal with them too.