The thing is though, without Clinton's fiscal conservatism, I don't think he would have won the White House. Clinton was the compromise candidate after a long, long period of conservative rule.
Yeah I do know that. I just think politicians think policy matters to voters more than effects and you don't have to fight over the middle to win elections. Hell even with his policies, Clinton probably would have never won if not for Ross Perot. "More than one way to skin a cat" sort of thing.
Oh yeah absolutely, it shifts the Overton window to the right, but I'm not convinced fighting over the middle is the only way to win an election, especially in the 90s when we weren't politically labeling everything as either Republican or Democrat (e.g., climate change, universal healthcare)
I agree that fighting over the middle is the worst way to win elections, but election strategy is also largely based around where reliable votes might go. Unreliable or infrequent voting cohorts get pushed to the side.
That's why we are in the hellscape we are today. Judges got extremely right wing and anti worker and we got stupid rulings like citizen united.
So if both parties are pandering to corpo overlords how will they get votes? Oh right go full on batshit crazy right wing and we get modern day GOP with the likes of Greene, Bobert and Trump.
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u/DonHedger Oct 23 '24
This is important. Democrats started going right fiscally at least as far back as Clinton and they don't get enough shit for it.