A question unanswered

waterfield wrote:

I asked progressives yesterday if there have been any Presidents of this country who if running today they could support. Any takers?

Well the question itself had too many assumptions built into it.

For example I have voted in every presidential election from 1972 on.

Some refrain from voting for the right-center democrats the party has tended to put up from Clinton on, some don’t.

I know it’s just a word, and there is no King of Words to nail it down to one definition. But I’m not a fan of using “progressive” to describe leftists. Primarily because I’m so used to the word being applied to Democrats. It’s basically a word used as a substitute for “liberal,” though it’s sometimes even taken up by DLC folks like the Clintons. All around the web, you’ll find people who support Hillary and call themselves “progressives,” and they reject pretty much everything we “leftists” stand for.

For me, support would be contingent on “no other choice.” I am always going to prefer someone not associated at all with the duopoly at this point in my life. But if I have to choose, I’d go with FDR. I don’t think he does something as monstrous as interning the Japanese in the context of 2016, and he wouldn’t have chosen austerity in the midst of an economic crisis, as did Obama.

But I’d probably support someone who never got a chance to be prez, above all the rest associated with either major party: RFK. The RFK of 1968, not JFK’s hatchet man from a few years earlier. I think he had a true Road to Damascus moment after his brother was murdered, and by the time 1968 came around, he wasn’t the same guy. Easily the most “progressive” candidate in the last 70 years or so, from the two parties.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Billy_T.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Billy_T.

waterfield wrote:

bnw wrote:

So for you that means none?

Exactly/

No it does not mean that.

I would have supported (in the 20th century) FDR and to a lesser extent T.R.

Here;s what the question neglects. If you are a leftist, then you support leftist policies. Historically, unlike other advanced democracies, the USA has marginalized leftist policies, to the point where many who claim to not accept those policies can’t even name them adequately. (I have never in my life seen a non-leftist accurately describe what a leftist viewpoint is. That’s because they don’t know what it is. They think they do but they never actually do know. Their heads as too deep into the mainstream, and the american mainstream filters out that kind of thinking.)

If however there were a series of leftist presidents, and I asked you W if you supported them, your answer would tend more toward no then toward yes. I assume you would not want to compromise on your own political beliefs.

However, I think that (or get the impression that) you seem to be fine with Clinton, being the right-center type you are, and are trying to argue with the leftists here who say they will not vote for Clinton.

But that has you over generalizing. Not every self-identified leftist here has said they would not vote for Clinton. You;re just chasing the ones who said they wouldn’t.

waterfield wrote:

I do not want a monk as President.

You’re not, are you, being defensive about the criticism that Hillary is ruthlessly ambitious?

If so it’s kind of misguided.

Of course Eisenhower sent the troops across the channel, how could he not. That’s not “ruthless,” it’s just simply not stupid. I mean if the goal was to remove the german occupying forces from western europe, what Supreme Allied Commander would argue against an invasion? “I don’t know, invading seems so…extreme.”

What I get out of Eisenhower’s role as the Supreme Allied Commander in western europe is that for the most part he used superb diplomatic skills to hold together a huge and disparate alliance against a formidable military foe.

As president, he used those skills of insight and dedication to do things like end the segregation of the military and of Washington DC and the federal government, and that was against entrenched resistance.

All that has nothing to do with whether someone sees Hillary as being ruthless or ambitious. For one thing, those qualities don’t matter as much as what they are used in the NAME OF. The policies. Which policies does she favor. Which is the real issue.

You are just going to have to live with the fact that leftists don’t view Hillary the way you do and they won’t be talked into your view any more than you will be talked into theirs.

waterfield wrote:

zn wrote:

You’re not, are you, being defensive about the criticism that Hillary is ruthlessly ambitious?

Of course I am ! IMO a good President must be ruthless when it counts and ambitious. I see those qualities in Clinton and I respect them. Others see the same and hate her for them.
These things won’t change-your right.

BTW: Of all the 44-or 45 depending on how to count Grover Cleveland-Presidents we have had which one(s) could you support if they were running today?

Then what’s really happening is that this is a classic miscommunication getting further gummed up by personal emotions.

The people who are criticizing HC for being ambitious mean that it’s hollow ambition, ambition in the name of nothing other than her own self-aggrandizement. Now you don’t have to agree with that view, but it is what they are saying.

You then turn that into dedication to taking decisive action (as if that’s what the critics were criticizing) and come up with examples of how decisive action is good. Though it is noteworthy that the actions you defend WERE in the name of principles greater than simple self-aggrandizement. Eisenhower acted in the name of allied policy to defeat nazi germany in time of war and to liberate western europe from its control. In fact he had little if any choice in the matter—it wasn’t in his power to call the invasion off. If he even tried he would simply have been replaced. So D-day is not an example of mere empty self-aggrandizement. It has nothing to do with what the others here were saying about Clinton.

So all I see is people talking past one another. You’re not even using the same words to mean the same things.

I could care less either way if you like her ruthlessness. What’s happening, though, is that you are taking the criticism out of context, and misreading it. Therefore you’re not really responding to the actual criticism. Not that you have to or should even care. But it is just miscommunication.

..

Ike is an interesting case. Obama has governed well to his right. Stick the Ike of his presidency in today’s GOP, and he would be instantly primaried out of it. In more than a few cases, he’d be seen as too far left for the Dems, too. In the 1950s, he was thought of as “conservative.” But today, he’d at least be “center-left.”

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those — regardless of their political party — who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.—Dwight D. Eisenhower

I can’t remember the last Dem who said such a thing about unions. And Eisenhower made similar comments about how wrong it was to go against the social safety net. Obama, OTOH, offered Boehner a “grand bargain” to slash Social Security and Medicare.

The top tax rate under Ike? 91%. And, yeah, I know, no one paid that amount. But no one pays the 39.6% rate today, either. The effective rate for the rich under Ike was in the 55% range. The effective rate now? Maybe 25%. And for the super rich, it’s much less than that, cuz of their use of carried interest, etc. etc.

Ike governed well to the left of Obama.

Billy_T wrote:

Ike is an interesting case. Obama has governed well to his right. Stick the Ike of his presidency in today’s GOP, and he would be instantly primaried out of it. In more than a few cases, he’d be seen as too far left for the Dems, too. In the 1950s, he was thought of as “conservative.” But today, he’d at least be “center-left.”

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those — regardless of their political party — who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.—Dwight D. Eisenhower

I can’t remember the last Dem who said such a thing about unions. And Eisenhower made similar comments about how wrong it was to go against the social safety net. Obama, OTOH, offered Boehner a “grand bargain” to slash Social Security and Medicare.

The top tax rate under Ike? 91%. And, yeah, I know, no one paid that amount. But no one pays the 39.6% rate today, either. The effective rate for the rich under Ike was in the 55% range. The effective rate now? Maybe 25%. And for the super rich, it’s much less than that, cuz of their use of carried interest, etc. etc.

Ike governed well to the left of Obama.

Yes and his Operation Wetback of 1954 deported 1.3 million illegal aliens to Mexico. It is always about jobs. The people need jobs. Good jobs. Jobs with benefits and a future.

I like Ike for all the reasons you mention, although I must throw in that he didn’t resist McCarthy until McCarthy started going for people in the Pentagon.

FDR for me. He had flaws, too, but certainly made a lot of progress, and had the country headed in the right direction.