[lbo-talk] another TP poll: still whiter, righter, more

[brad bauerly]

Marv wrote:
>I certainly understood you to be contrasting the very opinionated activists in the TP movement with the Democratic rank-and-file, and have now begun to retreat from >that position under fire from your critics. You're laying claim to a more nuanced  view, and that is good, but I don't think I've misrepresented where you have been >coming from.
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No, you are still either misrepresenting me or misunderstanding me.
Vary early on in the TP discussions I mentioned that the left should
focus on those yet undecided people who might be won over by TP
rhetoric if there was no left to offer alternatives.  This has always
been my focus.  I have never said that we should reach out to TP
activists.  My nuance was there from the beginning, it is only
recently that people have begun to realize that their can be a nuanced
position- instead of associating general curiosity about the TP with
apologetics and support for the TP- that seeks to understand the TP
and their appeal in an effort to prevent further workers from moving
rightward and offer a potential source of left organization.

You need to read the history of the NDP.  It did not form from a
liberal basis but from a populist one arising out of the radical
center of the two other parties (particularly the 1929 support of the
Conservatives by the Progressive party to defeat the Liberals).  [The
NDP for those unfamiliar with politics up here is responsible for
Canada's socialised medical program.]


>If anything, there's been more evident disaffection and motion within the DP than in these other parties because of the crises in US foreign and domestic policy and the >failure of the Obama administration to meet the expectations of its liberal base.
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Where is this happening.  I don't see it. All I see is liberal
Democrats holding tight to the party no matter what Obama does.  The
focusing on the racism of the TP only strengthens their tight grip on
the DP security blanket.

Brad