If Democrats want to win elections, they should stand up and fight for what the American people want

[Uncle Joe]

25. Great! Then you should enjoy this article from Robert Reich on the issue of leadership.

Why Biden shouldn't move there

I just heard Joe Manchin say Biden should move to the “center.” Political consultant Mark Penn wrote in the New York Times that “Biden should follow the lead of Bill Clinton, and move to the center.”

Duh. Who wants to be on the fringe? Political careers are imperiled by labels like “left-winger” (or “right-winger”). The public feels safer with a president who proclaims total commitment to the middle. FDR always sought to position himself as a centrist. So did Nixon (remember the “silent majority?”). Barry Goldwater’s “extremism in defense of liberty” helped cost him the White House.

But this is just positioning. Visionary leaders of America have always understood that the “center” is a fictitious place lying somewhere south of thoughtless adherence to the status quo.

Virtually any attempt to lead — to summon forth the energies and commitments of public — will not “centrist” be at the time. That’s the essence of leadership. Teddy Roosevelt didn’t discover the evils of industrial concentration at the political center. FDR didn’t knit a safety net for the poor and dispossessed, or take the nation into the Second World War, from the center. Kennedy and Johnson didn’t locate the cause of civil rights at the center. Nixon didn’t find support for recognizing China in the center. Nor even did Reagan find his mandate for a smaller government at the center.

(snip)

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/political-center-bs

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016312242