Hacker News Reader

Comment by emodendroket | Hacker News Reader

> (c) The result of the current rules is that a politician's ONLY job is to appeal to primary voters, which is why they take an ideologic or hard line stance. "Reaching across the aisle" results in a primary challenger that costs them their job.

I'm not sure how that's the conclusion you're drawing from this round of Democratic primaries.

View on HN

He obviously isn't drawing that conclusion from "this round of democratic primaries". In a comment addressing 20 years of history, your attempt to revoke it involves looking at what one half of the parties did in the most recent few months.

OK, but go back all the way to Bill Clinton and it's clear that this pattern does not fit the trends in the Democratic Party at all. In fact, the Dems have been quite successful at beating back progressives for decades. Big hole in the "polarization" narrative. Party insiders pulling out all the stops to make a Sanders win unlikely just makes it obvious in a way it might not have been previously.

Pew seems to indicate that the democratic party (or at least the electorate) has moved significantly leftward, particularly after the 2016 election. It doesn't seem that polarization is unique to a particular party. Moreover, I would argue that a self described socialist becoming one of the most important voices in the party is actually evidence of this leftward movement.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/political-...

The whole point I'm making is that the Democratic Party has beat back the challenge from its base far more effectively than the Republicans, to the point that the argument just won't fit. Despite Sanders' high favorability among many Democratic voters, there's no evidence he's going to be very "influential" anytime soon.

They (The Democratic party) have been able to beat back challengers because their selection process for the presidential candidate is ironically less democratic than the Republicans. The GOP super delegates cannot vote against the way their state voted and they have less influence. The DNC super delegates have a greater influence and do not have to vote inline with their state.

As for Sanders. He has lost influence because he betrayed his base twice (he endorsed a candidate that the base consider to be totally corrupt) and lets face it he is too old now.

That's a factor but they have also been more willing to coordinate to stop outside challengers, like when everyone (including the frontrunner!) stepped aside to make way for Biden.

Base aside, I think Sanders isn't influential because the party insiders are strongly opposed to him. By way of contrast, despite a disastrous primary run, look at Kamala Harris.

On the one hand, the Democratic Presidential primary had overwhelming support for the most moderate candidate available. On the other hand, Democratic Congressional primaries have started to get a little silly in terms of how vicious the internecine fights can get between people who fundamentally disagree on very little, my favorite example being Ritchie Torres vs Samelys López in the Bronx.

It's more than a little silly. A viscous fight with someone you hardly disagree with indicates that you either don't believe in their ability to execute, or that you're more invested in the power than the policy. It's a bad look.

Or the third option, which I believe was at work in the example I gave: you're very invested in your least popular policies, which you have the greatest differences with your opponent about.

Nasty fights between people who disagree on little don't suggest more polarization -- they suggest that candidates aren't facing that much serious ideological challenge, which is what we'd expect to see if it were really true that Democrats were going further and further left in an effort to please their base. You can point to a couple examples like Ocasio-Cortez, but I think it is fair to say that this trend is nowhere near as pronounced as you've seen with grassroots conservatism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com