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Former President Barack Obama said on Saturday he worries about the far-left, progressive wing of the Democratic party being unwilling to compromise and creating a "circular firing squad" against allies over policy and issue differences. "One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States, maybe it's true here as well, is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, 'Uh, I'm sorry, this is how it's going to be,' and then we start sometimes creating what's called a 'circular firing squad,' where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity on the issues," Obama said a town hall in Berlin, Germany, hosted by the Obama Foundation.
The Democratic former president argued that this party infighting usually leads to "the overall effort and movement weaken(ing)." "You have to recognize that the way we've structured democracy requires you to take into account people who don't agree with you, and that by definition means you're not going to get 100 percent of what you want," Obama said. He spoke of the importance of compromise and navigating what you believe in, saying he wanted more from the multi-national Paris climate accord and the Affordable Care Act in the US, but accepted what could be passed and agreed upon at the time. "You can't set up a system in which you don't compromise on anything, but you also can't operate in a system where you compromise on everything," Obama said.
Democrats have been divided over the Green New Deal, healthcare and worker's wages, among other issues.
This unfolding central theme this cycle was given new life during Sen. Bernie Sanders' unexpectedly competitive challenge to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary. President Donald Trump's polarizing positions on immigration, climate, health care and the economy often enrage the progressive base on a daily basis. As such as universally effective primary foil, some Democrats seeking to claim the "progressive" mantle do not have to shy away from the label in the same way that candidates like Clinton and others have in the past. "[Sanders] actually helped move the party and the party has changed since then, and the context of Trump gives Democrats a little more freedom to go into new places," Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, told ABC News.
While the former Delaware senator holds onto his moderate label, saying Friday the vast majority of the party is "still basically liberal to moderate Democrats in the traditional sense," progressive groups reject Biden's thinking in favor of candidates who embrace this newfound freedom to pitch policy ideas once rejected by a wide swath of the party. "Joe Biden doesn't want to acknowledge that the winds have shifted in the Democratic Party away from compromising with Republicans and corporate donors and toward the grassroots progressive movement," said Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats, the progressive group that backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley in their bids to unseat longstanding Democratic incumbents.
"It's because so-called centrists like him are the last to shift with the winds of change." "The center of the party and the center of the general American electorate has moved massively in an economic populist direction, where big ideas that were never even contemplated by the Obama-Biden administration are now squarely in the mainstream of public debate and supported by most voters," said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who is backing Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in the 2020 primary. "The center of gravity has shifted."
originally posted by: matafuchs
The year was 1912 and Teddy lost the RNC nomination for president.
The Progressive movement was born.
originally posted by: matafuchs
You are correct with your timeline but it was not 'mainstreamed' till Teddy tried it to take a nomination.
The left is in disarray and you are correct it takes a lot of money but look what you have right now. Over 20 people who wants to run. No unity. Money going to multiple places.
originally posted by: matafuchs
The Progressive Era started in 1880-1890 time frame. It was part of the thinking or ideology of some on these platforms however The Progressive Party was created in 1912. So I am not totally incorrect nor are you totally correct.
Obama and the left created this unwillingness. Now, like always, it's coming back to bite their asses. Obama must not understand that when you have a difference over policy and issue, you don't vote for the person holding those different views. In the mind of a liberal, voting against Obama means you voted against a black man because he's black, policies and issues be damned. Now that it's not being used to his benefit, he sees the dangers of his own party. Too bad. You started this, now you're gonna eat it.