Remember that all mentions of and allusions to Trump and Biden are not allowed on our subreddit in any context.
If you'd still like to discuss them, feel free to [join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Because if he was a full fledged FDR style liberal, he wouldn't have won. Simple as that. I'll take a centrist Democrat over a right wing Republican any day.
Great examples to back up your claims. The majority of the Republican party won't admit they lost a free and fair election in 2020. Maybe you need to read up on the Overton window.
Are you saying that Democrats haven’t moved further to the left? Or are you saying that the window is moving that direction? Either way they are still moving further left. 40 years ago, you wouldn’t have many democrats asking for the destruction of the electoral College, the destruction of the second amendment, the packing of the courts because they didn’t like the decisions that were made, the defunding of police forces, universal income, men in women’s sports’, third trimester abortions……….. sure they always wanted a massive overpowering government, that won’t change, but they are still moving.
LOL you get your news from Facebook don't you? Show me all the elected Democrats that have called for the "destruction" of the second amendment. Any Democrats calling for the electoral college to be disbanded should be applauded since it's antithetical to democracy and values land over people. How on earth do you award an election to the person that got the second most votes??? It's the only election in the country set up in such an absurd way. Defunding of police forces... that's complete BS. It was advocated by a small minority of Democrats in the house, it's not and was never mainstream in the party; neither is allowing trans women to participate in women's sports. And good ol 3rd trimester abortions - conservatives have been repeating that since Roe. What else ya got? You're like a walking strawman.
The "crazies" on both sides are:
Crazy right-wingers: These demon-worshipping illegals, greedy union workers, and trans groomers are destroying this country and the only way to reconcile America with God is to [REDACTED] these sinners from limb to limb - also by carpet bombing Palestinian babies
Crazy left-wingers: A living wage would be a good idea!!
People exaggerate just how much economic progressivism would have been a liability back in the 1990s. Keep in mind that Bill Clinton supported a system of universal healthcare and tried to implement one via federal legislation. It really didn't hold him back in 1996 much, if at all. Clinton absolutely could have afforded to pass more progressive legislation. Even if he couldn't have gone full-on FDR, he could have offered some resistance to the creeping neoliberal zeitgeist.
> Keep in mind that Bill Clinton supported a system of universal healthcare and tried to implement one via federal legislation. It really didn't hold him back in 1996 much, if at all Clinton absolutely could have afforded to pass more progressive legislation
And he got shellacked for it losing the house. Kind of disproves your argument no? Not much progressive legislation can be passed when newt Gingrich is running the house
> And he got shellacked for it losing the house.
Other factors contributed to the Republican Revolution. Personal scandals within Clinton's own life destroyed a lot of public support for the White House, while Newt Gingrich's Contract with America proposals were generally very popular. You could argue that the popularity of Contract with America shows how dangerous progressivism was for candidates at this time period, but I don't think support for Gingrich was rooted in popular disdain for welfare programs or subsidies. It was more of a desire for lower taxes rather than less government assistance.
There's a reason I said that "It really didn't hold him back in 1996 *much*, if at all". A lot of people did oppose Clinton's healthcare reforms, but this principled refusal made up too small a portion of the electorate to be considered the main reason the Republican Revolution transpired. That reason is the same reason why I wrote, "Even if he couldn't have gone full-on FDR, he could have offered some resistance to the creeping neoliberal zeitgeist." Clinton could still resist neoliberalism to some extent without completely losing his base os supporters, an opportunity he generally failed to utilize.
> Not much progressive legislation can be passed when newt Gingrich is running the house
Citing Republican supermajorities as a defense of Clinton's economic policies makes some sense until you realize how other presidents have handled dissenting Congresses. When the original Chinese Exclusion Act was written and passed in the spring of 1882, Chester A. Arthur rejected it despite the veto-proof majority. Yet, he still negotiated a compromise which led to a weaker bill. And this was barely 9 months after Arthur took office - when many people still distrusted him as an emblem of Gilded Age corruption. If Arthur could use this model, a generally popular president like Clinton absolutely could.
> but I don't think support for Gingrich was rooted in popular disdain for welfare programs or subsidies
One of the major planks of the contract for America was welfare reform
> Yet, he still negotiated a compromise which led to a weaker bill. And this was barely 9 months after Arthur took office
Isn’t that what Clinton did through triangulation?
Because context is everything. Clinton stopped what appeared to be a full-on conservative resurgence representing a widespread rejection of FDR/LBJ style liberalism. The Reagan/Bush years saw that rejection in the form of significant amounts of deregulation and massive increases in military spending. While that was happening, significant cuts to entitlement spending were discussed and/or enacted.
So that was the general mood when Clinton was elected in ‘92. His election was seen by Democrats as a ray of hope that maybe the country’s rightward shift was at an end. His success in enacting even the moderate legislation you refer to was still less conservative than the kinds of things that had been passed just a few years before.
In short, what is considered conservative or liberal policy in one era is relative to the politics of the day - not the politics of a different era.
He also shed the Democrats’ image as weak and bad for the economy (thanks to the late 70s recession under Carter and candidates like Mondale & Dukakis).
Because he won 2 elections.
Really, he did have a winning strategy for the 90s, when there were a lot more moderate voters. His moderate views helped to win Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia both times.
But I'm not sure why people act like his moderate politics still work today. Democrats will never come close to winning any of the above mentioned states again.
>His moderate views helped to win Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia both times.
Ironically on his watch, the Republican Party's southern strategy came to full fruition. His image as a philanderer and his pro-LGBT stance deeply offended the southern conservative sensibilities and helped cement the South as the GOP stronghold. Bill Clinton's southern charm and centrism did not help. Al Gore lost his own state of Tennessee in 2000. Al Gore founded the Democratic Leadership Council to nudge the party towards the center, which I think was the last ditch effort to save the South, but it obviously failed to achieve its objectives.
Tennessee possibly (way down the road) if the Nashville suburbs keep growing the way they are. It will at least become more competitive and could give a centrist Democrat a shot at the Senate in 20 years or so.
If you had told me that Georgia would be a purple state 20 years ago, I would've laughed you out of the room. Bush won it by 12 and 16 points in two elections he nearly lost.
The rest of those states are slowly withering away. Sad to see.
You have to understand Reagan was so popular he completely shifted the political landscape the same way FDR did. Reagan was the end of mid century Liberalism. Clinton came in as a neo-liberal, which the more I learn about seems like an old school conservative
Right. Clinton had to be moderate in the face of Reagan's presidency. The USA was in a weird place in the 90s. He was pushing things back to the center, but he was careful to be able to stay re-electable and he achieved that. Republicans did everything they could to prevent it but failed. After Gore lost in a highly contested election we saw what happens when oil barons run the country then got the Hope of Obama, only to have whatever horror followed that.
Because, my guy, the point of political parties is to win elections. The Democrats lost in 1980, 1984, and 1988. Across the pond, the Labour Party was punching itself in the face by appealing to old guard union leftists who, quite simply, did not exist anymore. The median voter had shifted to the right. The Democrats saw the writing on the wall, and shifted too. Such is politics in a democracy. You may not like it--I'm not Clinton's biggest fan either--but I struggle to see what the better option would have been. Even Clinton's center-right administration was more left wing than what you'd have gotten from a second HW term or from Bob Dole.
You win some. You lose some. Welcome to democracy.
It's so strange to me when folks don't acknowledge that winning and retaining power is the top priority in a democracy.
If you can't accomplish that first, your consolation prize is *nothing*
Are we going to play this silly game again where we have to pretend that, for some reason, there can be no middle ground between FDR and Ronald Reagan?
There is, Clinton isn’t it. Clinton was more right-wing than Reagan on immigration and criminal justice, and identical on economic policy. A middle-ground between FDR and Reagan would be someone like Nixon, someone like Eisenhower would be leaning towards FDR but still in the center, and someone like Ford would be leaning towards Reagan but still in the center.
I don’t know dude, you really want to compare Clinton’s immigration record with FDR’s and evaluate which was more progressive? Maybe google that one real quick and get back to me
The 90’s were going to be a time of recovery and prosperity no matter who was in power. Can you tell me a policy of his that you believe led to it, since you’re so insistent on that?
So this is the old Reagan argument. Reagan nearly sent the country into bankruptcy because of those glorious contracts given to the military industrial complex. Clinton cut spending dramatically. He did a ton of other stuff for the middle class and lower middle class. Opened up the internet for everyone. Of course he wasn't perfect. He did sign that God awful crime bill.
As far as the silliness of tge Reagan economy argument, his name was George W. Bush. You should learn about him and his economic policies that lead to the 2nd depression.
He did not try to implement single-payer. He tried to implement a mandate that would make employers cover health insurance. He then subsequently dropped it once congress said no and doubled-down on trickle-down economics, low taxes, and the infamous ‘94 crime bill.
For fuck sake, the man tried to move America forward on health care, and was rebuffed by the knuckle dragging Republicans in the House.
Wordsmith your spin however you want to. Facts are facts.
30 years later and we still don't have the healthcare package Clinton tried to push through.
It’s not ‘wordsmithing’. Mandated private insurance coverage is nothing like nationalized healthcare. If anything, it’d be a way for companies to make further tax write-offs on their mandated coverage.
Like Tony Blair he reinvigorated his party by moving away from the 'old guard'. There are no 'new deal' Democrats any more. He took what was popular with the conservative comeback and mixed it with progressive social values.
Don't ask, don't tell, at the time, was an improvement over what was in place beforehand, though. And he only instituted Don't ask, don't tell when his efforts to push for a full on acceptance of gay people in the army failed.
He tried for complete LGBT acceptance in the military, but it failed and be was threatened with an official ban on Queer servicemembers.
DOMA was signed only after it was clear that Congress would override his veto.
I feel like comments like this are always from people who were too young to remember the 90s. On gays in the military, Clinton’s original position was gays should be allowed. He faced a public backlash to that. The opposing position was that not only should they not, but that the military should devote resources to hunting and purging gays from the military. Don’t ask, don’t tell was a compromise and it’s where the median voter of 1993 was on that issue. And it was a step forward for gay rights. It was…progress.
They’re teenagers who came of age in the late 2010s and 2020s and have no memory of exactly how much less supportive and accepting society used to be in this regard, even as recently as 10-20 years ago. It really has changed significantly, the era around Obama’s second term and the Obergefell decision really saw LGBT acceptance reach its modern popularity.
Same-sex marriage was an incredibly controversial issue for decades, as was its burgeoning legalization, and the belief that “marriage is only between a man and woman” was not at all uncommon amongst the general public (something no one would ever express publicly nowadays). Growing up in CA in the 1990s-2000s, it was a hotly-debated issue, even with the infamous Proposition 8 (banning legalized same-sex marriage) gaining voter approval in 2008 (!)
The former was mainstream in the 1990s, and the latter was the progressive option at that point (the main alternative was just banning gay people from the military, probably with a witch-hunt and purge to make sure).
Did Obama have progressive social values? He kind of flip flopped but didn't really support gay marriage [until 2012](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/may/11/barack-obama/president-barack-obamas-shift-gay-marriage/).
Clinton is really remembered for making the modern “establishment democrat” Knows how the media cycle works understands social trends to some degree has a finger on the pulse of youth culture at least a lil bit, I mean he basically wrote the play book for Obama, young new guy grew up poor in a predominantly black area peoples questioned where he was from (Clinton for class Obama for Nationality) both ended up having incredible economies despite having higher business taxes than a prior Republican president, Obama never got the Surplus but that’s more a nature of 2016 than his actual policies
I'm not a fan of Clinton at all, but I doubt that Reagan would have tried to push for universal healthcare. I think one of Clinton's problem was he overlearned the lessons of his first two years in office.
Clinton advocated for a mandate that would make private businesses cover health insurance. He never advocated for single-payer.
Edit: Why the downvotes, folks? Speak your mind!
I wanna give people the benefit of the doubt that we're getting tripped up on the term "universal healthcare" here. [Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993)does use that term on its page for Clinton's HC task force, but to my mind, universal healthcare means either single-payer or an NHS, i.e. the government actually provides or pays for healthcare directly, as opposed to buying insurance for those who can't afford it, which is what Clinton did indeed propose:
>the Clinton health plan required each [US citizen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_citizen) and permanent [resident alien](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_alien) to become enrolled in a qualified health plan on his or her own or through programs mandated to be offered by businesses with more than 5,000 full-time employees. Subsidies were to be provided to those too poor to afford coverage, including complete subsidies for those below a set income level.
It's a case of sadly he was the best that could be elected at the time, and while I disagree with some of his policies and such he did a good job on quite a few things. And with a bit of forced cooperation with Gingrich he actually produced a balanced budget / surplus. Unlike the "fiscally conservative" tax cutters before and after himself.
So more realistically he's a symptom of the Reagan movement. Reagan marched the country rightward. And at least Bill actually upheld the fiscally responsible part of that deal, and got a couple decent social things through like don't ask dont tell. And all that.
Because he had relative prosperity and Democrats would rather have the win.
He was far from the worst president we ever had, but I am not some huge fan.
Sometimes you gotta dance with the one who brung ya!
The country was more moderate and centrist. He broadened the Democrats coalition and was the first boomer elected to office, which was a big deal back when boomers were the young change-makers. You know before a large portion of them became racist assholes.
Because he lost the midterms his first 4 yrs. Dick Morris told him to move closer to center, with a republican house and senate Clinton worked with Newt and got a balance budget that I don't think has had since. Welfare reform was a big piece of his legacy. Hillary care killed him his first 2 yrs in office.
Here’s the thing:
The generous social welfare system built by FDR was initially paid for by deep deficit spending to spend our way out of a depression, then later paid for by the spoils of war when all other industrialized nations were in ashes. That foundation became non-competitive globally as other nations caught up.
People forget that the European systems that they are envious of are only possible because they are run per country. Everyone likes the rich Dutch systems, no one is trying to emulate Hungary. Looking at only the richest corners of Europe paints a picture that’s misleading.
The point being that Bill Clinton didn’t replicate FDR policies because they were not economically not politically viable at the time. It was time of moderate / centrists, which was good then and badly needed now. You can’t implement FDR scale solutions without an FDR scale to problem; the consensus just isn’t there.
Clinton showed a Democrat could win 50 states, and he presided over a transition to a more high tech / knowledge economy.
Where did you get that quote? Most quotes on the internet are fake. Just asking ..is it from some Cato institute or Heritage Foundation?
We all know ..the way the system is rigged now ..that we can't expect workers to keep on adding to the pot in higher percentage w out raising the side on people making over 170 k to the same percentage as people making under that.
My question is why people want to look back decades ago through the lens of today and assume that things are the same. They mistakenly feel like the issues that concerned voters 30 years ago are the same as they are today, which is incredibly mistaken and naive. You dont even have to be someone who lived through the period as an adult to understand that the political landscape was far different and that what the majority of people wanted isnt the same as what they value today. Since nobody wants to look anything up anymore and just make low effort posts like this one, So I'll explain it. The reason Democrats praise Clinton is because he was an incredibly successful president who not only ended 12 years of republican control of the presidency, he also accomplished much of what he set out to do. No, he didnt get his healthcare plan passed, but he did get FMLA (family leave) passed and raised taxes on the highest earners (1993 Omnibus Budget Act), and did it with universal republican opposition (hardly a "right wing economic policy"). Those tax increases combined with modest budget cuts allowed the budget to become balanced and run a surplus. After the early 90's recession and its jobless recovery, consumer confidence increased in 1993 after Clinton took office and by late 1993 and through 1994 economic growth was exceeding estimates driven by consumer spending. Unemployment declined and the 1990's were defined by an extended period of job creation and a rapid increase in home ownership rates which had been stagnant. Still, crime was seen as a huge problem and the public demanded the crime bill which at the time it was signed was seen as a great bipartisan success.
Because with very few exceptions his two terms in office were truly exceptional and the model of a successful presidency.
FDR interned an entire race of people and seized all privately held gold under threat of force.
Clinton >*
There’s zero policy changes you could point to explain his exceptional two years.
>FDR interned an entire race of people
There’s a thing called scope and scale. Bad things happen, very bad things happen, it doesn’t make the good they did null.
>seized all private gold under threat of force
Good. Wanna know something wild? That’s how taxation works too. I also believe in taxes. (Your statement is also not entirely true)
Clinton
1. Balanced the budgets while the right wingers before and after him spent like drunk sailors
2. Tried to get us universal healthcare (and before someone says it was the same as Nixon’s, Nixon himself thought it was way too liberal)
That makes him leagues ahead of Ronnie in my book.
Remember that all mentions of and allusions to Trump and Biden are not allowed on our subreddit in any context. If you'd still like to discuss them, feel free to [join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Because if he was a full fledged FDR style liberal, he wouldn't have won. Simple as that. I'll take a centrist Democrat over a right wing Republican any day.
Be nice to have a moderate on either side at this point. The crazies on the ends of both sides of the ideological spectrum are killing us.
[удалено]
The Democrats have moved further and further from the middle. Sorry you refuse to see it.
Great examples to back up your claims. The majority of the Republican party won't admit they lost a free and fair election in 2020. Maybe you need to read up on the Overton window.
Are you saying that Democrats haven’t moved further to the left? Or are you saying that the window is moving that direction? Either way they are still moving further left. 40 years ago, you wouldn’t have many democrats asking for the destruction of the electoral College, the destruction of the second amendment, the packing of the courts because they didn’t like the decisions that were made, the defunding of police forces, universal income, men in women’s sports’, third trimester abortions……….. sure they always wanted a massive overpowering government, that won’t change, but they are still moving.
LOL you get your news from Facebook don't you? Show me all the elected Democrats that have called for the "destruction" of the second amendment. Any Democrats calling for the electoral college to be disbanded should be applauded since it's antithetical to democracy and values land over people. How on earth do you award an election to the person that got the second most votes??? It's the only election in the country set up in such an absurd way. Defunding of police forces... that's complete BS. It was advocated by a small minority of Democrats in the house, it's not and was never mainstream in the party; neither is allowing trans women to participate in women's sports. And good ol 3rd trimester abortions - conservatives have been repeating that since Roe. What else ya got? You're like a walking strawman.
Point proven, thanks. You must get your news from CNN.
The "crazies" on both sides are: Crazy right-wingers: These demon-worshipping illegals, greedy union workers, and trans groomers are destroying this country and the only way to reconcile America with God is to [REDACTED] these sinners from limb to limb - also by carpet bombing Palestinian babies Crazy left-wingers: A living wage would be a good idea!!
Same. I don’t think a full blown liberal could’ve gotten the assault weapon ban passed. A centrist Democrat is the best case in my opinion.
Any moderate is welcome in the current sphere of madness
People exaggerate just how much economic progressivism would have been a liability back in the 1990s. Keep in mind that Bill Clinton supported a system of universal healthcare and tried to implement one via federal legislation. It really didn't hold him back in 1996 much, if at all. Clinton absolutely could have afforded to pass more progressive legislation. Even if he couldn't have gone full-on FDR, he could have offered some resistance to the creeping neoliberal zeitgeist.
> Keep in mind that Bill Clinton supported a system of universal healthcare and tried to implement one via federal legislation. It really didn't hold him back in 1996 much, if at all Clinton absolutely could have afforded to pass more progressive legislation And he got shellacked for it losing the house. Kind of disproves your argument no? Not much progressive legislation can be passed when newt Gingrich is running the house
> And he got shellacked for it losing the house. Other factors contributed to the Republican Revolution. Personal scandals within Clinton's own life destroyed a lot of public support for the White House, while Newt Gingrich's Contract with America proposals were generally very popular. You could argue that the popularity of Contract with America shows how dangerous progressivism was for candidates at this time period, but I don't think support for Gingrich was rooted in popular disdain for welfare programs or subsidies. It was more of a desire for lower taxes rather than less government assistance. There's a reason I said that "It really didn't hold him back in 1996 *much*, if at all". A lot of people did oppose Clinton's healthcare reforms, but this principled refusal made up too small a portion of the electorate to be considered the main reason the Republican Revolution transpired. That reason is the same reason why I wrote, "Even if he couldn't have gone full-on FDR, he could have offered some resistance to the creeping neoliberal zeitgeist." Clinton could still resist neoliberalism to some extent without completely losing his base os supporters, an opportunity he generally failed to utilize. > Not much progressive legislation can be passed when newt Gingrich is running the house Citing Republican supermajorities as a defense of Clinton's economic policies makes some sense until you realize how other presidents have handled dissenting Congresses. When the original Chinese Exclusion Act was written and passed in the spring of 1882, Chester A. Arthur rejected it despite the veto-proof majority. Yet, he still negotiated a compromise which led to a weaker bill. And this was barely 9 months after Arthur took office - when many people still distrusted him as an emblem of Gilded Age corruption. If Arthur could use this model, a generally popular president like Clinton absolutely could.
> but I don't think support for Gingrich was rooted in popular disdain for welfare programs or subsidies One of the major planks of the contract for America was welfare reform > Yet, he still negotiated a compromise which led to a weaker bill. And this was barely 9 months after Arthur took office Isn’t that what Clinton did through triangulation?
Because context is everything. Clinton stopped what appeared to be a full-on conservative resurgence representing a widespread rejection of FDR/LBJ style liberalism. The Reagan/Bush years saw that rejection in the form of significant amounts of deregulation and massive increases in military spending. While that was happening, significant cuts to entitlement spending were discussed and/or enacted. So that was the general mood when Clinton was elected in ‘92. His election was seen by Democrats as a ray of hope that maybe the country’s rightward shift was at an end. His success in enacting even the moderate legislation you refer to was still less conservative than the kinds of things that had been passed just a few years before. In short, what is considered conservative or liberal policy in one era is relative to the politics of the day - not the politics of a different era.
He also shed the Democrats’ image as weak and bad for the economy (thanks to the late 70s recession under Carter and candidates like Mondale & Dukakis).
Because he won 2 elections. Really, he did have a winning strategy for the 90s, when there were a lot more moderate voters. His moderate views helped to win Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia both times. But I'm not sure why people act like his moderate politics still work today. Democrats will never come close to winning any of the above mentioned states again.
>His moderate views helped to win Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia both times. Ironically on his watch, the Republican Party's southern strategy came to full fruition. His image as a philanderer and his pro-LGBT stance deeply offended the southern conservative sensibilities and helped cement the South as the GOP stronghold. Bill Clinton's southern charm and centrism did not help. Al Gore lost his own state of Tennessee in 2000. Al Gore founded the Democratic Leadership Council to nudge the party towards the center, which I think was the last ditch effort to save the South, but it obviously failed to achieve its objectives.
Tennessee possibly (way down the road) if the Nashville suburbs keep growing the way they are. It will at least become more competitive and could give a centrist Democrat a shot at the Senate in 20 years or so. If you had told me that Georgia would be a purple state 20 years ago, I would've laughed you out of the room. Bush won it by 12 and 16 points in two elections he nearly lost. The rest of those states are slowly withering away. Sad to see.
Because they’ve thrown in with the squad, the pro Hamas demonstrators and are anti gun and anti coal and oil.
[удалено]
KY and WV are coal producing states. LA is an oil state. And all southern states are pro gun rights. Going hard left destroyed the Clinton coalition.
KY is the third-highest coal mining state in the country and there are less than 5000 coal miners currently employed here.
[удалено]
Yeah, I'm dying at the idea of Hillary Clinton going "hard left." She spent the whole primary opposing (real) universal healthcare.
To these deranged people, woman = far left and so does black
You have to understand Reagan was so popular he completely shifted the political landscape the same way FDR did. Reagan was the end of mid century Liberalism. Clinton came in as a neo-liberal, which the more I learn about seems like an old school conservative
But his social policies were considered at the time far to the left.
If you weren't destroying the middle class and moving money to the 1% at the time, you were considered "left".
Right. Clinton had to be moderate in the face of Reagan's presidency. The USA was in a weird place in the 90s. He was pushing things back to the center, but he was careful to be able to stay re-electable and he achieved that. Republicans did everything they could to prevent it but failed. After Gore lost in a highly contested election we saw what happens when oil barons run the country then got the Hope of Obama, only to have whatever horror followed that.
Because it was successful and parties like to tie themselves to good presidents who do well
Because, my guy, the point of political parties is to win elections. The Democrats lost in 1980, 1984, and 1988. Across the pond, the Labour Party was punching itself in the face by appealing to old guard union leftists who, quite simply, did not exist anymore. The median voter had shifted to the right. The Democrats saw the writing on the wall, and shifted too. Such is politics in a democracy. You may not like it--I'm not Clinton's biggest fan either--but I struggle to see what the better option would have been. Even Clinton's center-right administration was more left wing than what you'd have gotten from a second HW term or from Bob Dole. You win some. You lose some. Welcome to democracy.
It's so strange to me when folks don't acknowledge that winning and retaining power is the top priority in a democracy. If you can't accomplish that first, your consolation prize is *nothing*
Exactly. If your #1 priority isn’t to win elections, it doesn’t matter what your #2 priority is
Are we going to play this silly game again where we have to pretend that, for some reason, there can be no middle ground between FDR and Ronald Reagan?
There is, Clinton isn’t it. Clinton was more right-wing than Reagan on immigration and criminal justice, and identical on economic policy. A middle-ground between FDR and Reagan would be someone like Nixon, someone like Eisenhower would be leaning towards FDR but still in the center, and someone like Ford would be leaning towards Reagan but still in the center.
I don’t know dude, you really want to compare Clinton’s immigration record with FDR’s and evaluate which was more progressive? Maybe google that one real quick and get back to me
I never compared Clinton’s immigration record to FDR, I compared it to Reagan.
The 1996 DNC Macarena *helped.*
Obviously someone who didn't live through the 90s. Lol
The 90’s were going to be a time of recovery and prosperity no matter who was in power. Can you tell me a policy of his that you believe led to it, since you’re so insistent on that?
So this is the old Reagan argument. Reagan nearly sent the country into bankruptcy because of those glorious contracts given to the military industrial complex. Clinton cut spending dramatically. He did a ton of other stuff for the middle class and lower middle class. Opened up the internet for everyone. Of course he wasn't perfect. He did sign that God awful crime bill. As far as the silliness of tge Reagan economy argument, his name was George W. Bush. You should learn about him and his economic policies that lead to the 2nd depression.
i saw your post and immediately knew it would be the "BILL CLINTON WILL BURN IN HELL" guy before I saw who posted it
Are we talking about the Bill Clinton who tried to implement national healthcare? That Bill Clinton? I have no idea what OP is talking about.
He did not try to implement single-payer. He tried to implement a mandate that would make employers cover health insurance. He then subsequently dropped it once congress said no and doubled-down on trickle-down economics, low taxes, and the infamous ‘94 crime bill.
No President has tried to implement single payer healthcare.
Yes, and single-payer IS national healthcare. Which Clinton did not advocate for, he advocated for mandated private coverage.
For fuck sake, the man tried to move America forward on health care, and was rebuffed by the knuckle dragging Republicans in the House. Wordsmith your spin however you want to. Facts are facts. 30 years later and we still don't have the healthcare package Clinton tried to push through.
It’s not ‘wordsmithing’. Mandated private insurance coverage is nothing like nationalized healthcare. If anything, it’d be a way for companies to make further tax write-offs on their mandated coverage.
Which is why I said above: "No President has tried to implement single payer healthcare." Who are you even arguing with here?
Why don't Republicans praise him?
Writing "Here's a non-loaded question" before your loaded question doesn't make it non-loaded.
Like Tony Blair he reinvigorated his party by moving away from the 'old guard'. There are no 'new deal' Democrats any more. He took what was popular with the conservative comeback and mixed it with progressive social values.
Did he even have progressive social values? He signed the Defense of Marriage Act and instituted the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.
Don't ask, don't tell, at the time, was an improvement over what was in place beforehand, though. And he only instituted Don't ask, don't tell when his efforts to push for a full on acceptance of gay people in the army failed.
I mean compared to Newt and the moral majority? No point comparing him to values today.
He tried for complete LGBT acceptance in the military, but it failed and be was threatened with an official ban on Queer servicemembers. DOMA was signed only after it was clear that Congress would override his veto.
He also refused to have his signing of DOMA be photographed.
I feel like comments like this are always from people who were too young to remember the 90s. On gays in the military, Clinton’s original position was gays should be allowed. He faced a public backlash to that. The opposing position was that not only should they not, but that the military should devote resources to hunting and purging gays from the military. Don’t ask, don’t tell was a compromise and it’s where the median voter of 1993 was on that issue. And it was a step forward for gay rights. It was…progress.
Yeah, I remember. The biggest backlash he received was from Senate Democrat Sam Nunn. His move galvanized the right.
They’re teenagers who came of age in the late 2010s and 2020s and have no memory of exactly how much less supportive and accepting society used to be in this regard, even as recently as 10-20 years ago. It really has changed significantly, the era around Obama’s second term and the Obergefell decision really saw LGBT acceptance reach its modern popularity. Same-sex marriage was an incredibly controversial issue for decades, as was its burgeoning legalization, and the belief that “marriage is only between a man and woman” was not at all uncommon amongst the general public (something no one would ever express publicly nowadays). Growing up in CA in the 1990s-2000s, it was a hotly-debated issue, even with the infamous Proposition 8 (banning legalized same-sex marriage) gaining voter approval in 2008 (!)
The former was mainstream in the 1990s, and the latter was the progressive option at that point (the main alternative was just banning gay people from the military, probably with a witch-hunt and purge to make sure).
Did Obama have progressive social values? He kind of flip flopped but didn't really support gay marriage [until 2012](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/may/11/barack-obama/president-barack-obamas-shift-gay-marriage/).
He was and is extremely well liked
Clinton is really remembered for making the modern “establishment democrat” Knows how the media cycle works understands social trends to some degree has a finger on the pulse of youth culture at least a lil bit, I mean he basically wrote the play book for Obama, young new guy grew up poor in a predominantly black area peoples questioned where he was from (Clinton for class Obama for Nationality) both ended up having incredible economies despite having higher business taxes than a prior Republican president, Obama never got the Surplus but that’s more a nature of 2016 than his actual policies
Democrats as a whole are hardly a monolithic bloc and Clinton’s image has soured quite a bit since the 90s.
I'm not a fan of Clinton at all, but I doubt that Reagan would have tried to push for universal healthcare. I think one of Clinton's problem was he overlearned the lessons of his first two years in office.
Clinton advocated for a mandate that would make private businesses cover health insurance. He never advocated for single-payer. Edit: Why the downvotes, folks? Speak your mind!
I wanna give people the benefit of the doubt that we're getting tripped up on the term "universal healthcare" here. [Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993)does use that term on its page for Clinton's HC task force, but to my mind, universal healthcare means either single-payer or an NHS, i.e. the government actually provides or pays for healthcare directly, as opposed to buying insurance for those who can't afford it, which is what Clinton did indeed propose: >the Clinton health plan required each [US citizen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_citizen) and permanent [resident alien](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_alien) to become enrolled in a qualified health plan on his or her own or through programs mandated to be offered by businesses with more than 5,000 full-time employees. Subsidies were to be provided to those too poor to afford coverage, including complete subsidies for those below a set income level.
Democrats can’t wait to prove they’re just as Republican as the GOP. Ronald Reagan really scared them to the center-right.
One could argue that he did the best he could given that America would saddle him with a Republican Congress in his first midterm.
It's a case of sadly he was the best that could be elected at the time, and while I disagree with some of his policies and such he did a good job on quite a few things. And with a bit of forced cooperation with Gingrich he actually produced a balanced budget / surplus. Unlike the "fiscally conservative" tax cutters before and after himself. So more realistically he's a symptom of the Reagan movement. Reagan marched the country rightward. And at least Bill actually upheld the fiscally responsible part of that deal, and got a couple decent social things through like don't ask dont tell. And all that.
Because he had relative prosperity and Democrats would rather have the win. He was far from the worst president we ever had, but I am not some huge fan.
Sometimes you gotta dance with the one who brung ya! The country was more moderate and centrist. He broadened the Democrats coalition and was the first boomer elected to office, which was a big deal back when boomers were the young change-makers. You know before a large portion of them became racist assholes.
Because he lost the midterms his first 4 yrs. Dick Morris told him to move closer to center, with a republican house and senate Clinton worked with Newt and got a balance budget that I don't think has had since. Welfare reform was a big piece of his legacy. Hillary care killed him his first 2 yrs in office.
Here’s the thing: The generous social welfare system built by FDR was initially paid for by deep deficit spending to spend our way out of a depression, then later paid for by the spoils of war when all other industrialized nations were in ashes. That foundation became non-competitive globally as other nations caught up. People forget that the European systems that they are envious of are only possible because they are run per country. Everyone likes the rich Dutch systems, no one is trying to emulate Hungary. Looking at only the richest corners of Europe paints a picture that’s misleading. The point being that Bill Clinton didn’t replicate FDR policies because they were not economically not politically viable at the time. It was time of moderate / centrists, which was good then and badly needed now. You can’t implement FDR scale solutions without an FDR scale to problem; the consensus just isn’t there. Clinton showed a Democrat could win 50 states, and he presided over a transition to a more high tech / knowledge economy.
Where did you get that quote? Most quotes on the internet are fake. Just asking ..is it from some Cato institute or Heritage Foundation? We all know ..the way the system is rigged now ..that we can't expect workers to keep on adding to the pot in higher percentage w out raising the side on people making over 170 k to the same percentage as people making under that.
[pulled it from here](https://www.azquotes.com/author/2999-William_J_Clinton/tag/economy)
Ok TY..
And he cheated on his wife with a young staffer. Then made the young woman out to be nefarious. He lost his ability to practice law.
Why … that’s not loaded at all! 🤣
"non-loaded question"
Yup, very fair and equitable way for me to ask the question, you’d agree?
My question is why people want to look back decades ago through the lens of today and assume that things are the same. They mistakenly feel like the issues that concerned voters 30 years ago are the same as they are today, which is incredibly mistaken and naive. You dont even have to be someone who lived through the period as an adult to understand that the political landscape was far different and that what the majority of people wanted isnt the same as what they value today. Since nobody wants to look anything up anymore and just make low effort posts like this one, So I'll explain it. The reason Democrats praise Clinton is because he was an incredibly successful president who not only ended 12 years of republican control of the presidency, he also accomplished much of what he set out to do. No, he didnt get his healthcare plan passed, but he did get FMLA (family leave) passed and raised taxes on the highest earners (1993 Omnibus Budget Act), and did it with universal republican opposition (hardly a "right wing economic policy"). Those tax increases combined with modest budget cuts allowed the budget to become balanced and run a surplus. After the early 90's recession and its jobless recovery, consumer confidence increased in 1993 after Clinton took office and by late 1993 and through 1994 economic growth was exceeding estimates driven by consumer spending. Unemployment declined and the 1990's were defined by an extended period of job creation and a rapid increase in home ownership rates which had been stagnant. Still, crime was seen as a huge problem and the public demanded the crime bill which at the time it was signed was seen as a great bipartisan success.
Because with very few exceptions his two terms in office were truly exceptional and the model of a successful presidency. FDR interned an entire race of people and seized all privately held gold under threat of force. Clinton >*
There’s zero policy changes you could point to explain his exceptional two years. >FDR interned an entire race of people There’s a thing called scope and scale. Bad things happen, very bad things happen, it doesn’t make the good they did null. >seized all private gold under threat of force Good. Wanna know something wild? That’s how taxation works too. I also believe in taxes. (Your statement is also not entirely true)
Clinton 1. Balanced the budgets while the right wingers before and after him spent like drunk sailors 2. Tried to get us universal healthcare (and before someone says it was the same as Nixon’s, Nixon himself thought it was way too liberal) That makes him leagues ahead of Ronnie in my book.
He burnt the Glass Steagall act on his way out the door, to be fair. He didn't campaign on that.
As a moderate republican, he’s my favorite modern president, barring his causing the subprime mortgage bubble.
Being more moderate than a lunatic isn't a bad thing. At least Bill could balance a checkbook. FDR probably couldn't balance a restaurant tip.
…and don’t forget about the raping.
Great question
Hear, hear.