This post of Amanda’s lays out in handy table form something that a lot of people — including my friends at FAIR, and, well, me — have been trying to point out for far too long; i.e. that the definitions of right and left grow ever more skewed in this country. When mainstream discourse extends from the furthest fringe of the right all the way over to the middle of the road, progressive/left liberals are excluded from the debate entirely, and the “moderate center” is resituated somewhere well to the right of the actual center of public opinion in this country. And the goals of an extremist fringe minority (like the abolition of reproduction rights, per Amanda’s chart) are increasingly likely to be realized as a result …
Related cartoons (from ’91 and ’92) — here, here and here.
… one of the Pandagon commentors points out something that every Democratic politician should tattoo backwards on their forehead so they have to read it every time they look in the mirror:
… the Democrats keep losing because the Republicans are smart enough to stake out positions well to the right of what they really want, while the Democrats pre-negotiate with themselves and start with a position that concedes half the battle before the debate starts.
You want to know why Clinton’s health care reform failed so badly, and set back the cause at least a decade and a half? That’s it in a nutshell.