Since 1993 the political debate on the left has been about the degree of the Democratic Party's evilness relative to the GOP's evilness, and whether the Dem's evilness is so great that a person can morally vote for them.

The basic assumption was that the Republicans are more evil, and that was usually true (although the amount varied). The GOP endorsed voter suppression, greater corporate power through deregulation, free trade agreements (recall that it was Republicans that pushed through NAFTA), each and every war, and restrictions on civil rights.

The Democrats generally were either split on all of these issues, or weakly opposed them. Thus making them a lesser evil.

Now the point can be made that the Democratic Party: a) falsely presents itself as representing the middle and lower classes; and b) stands in the way of the formation of a real opposition to the elites.

To many that makes the Dems more evil, but that is beyond the scope of this essay.

The Democrats are terrible, but Republicans are even worse.

At least that was clearly true until 2016. Now things aren't so clear.

Democrats have been courting the upper-class for so long that the base of the party is beginning to resemble it.

For starters, Democrats are now far more globalist than Republican voters.



Polls now consistently find that Democratic voters are more supportive than Republicans of free trade. A national Quinnipiac University survey earlier this month found that while nearly three-fifths of Republicans backed Trump's aluminum and steel tariffs, almost three-fourths of Democrats opposed it.

72% of Republicans support renegotiation of NAFTA, compared with 35% of Democrats.

Can you imagine the comfortable liberals of Seattle protesting the WTO today?

This shows how disconnected the Dems have become from the working class, and that's a deal breaker for some on the left.

However, there is an even bigger and more disturbing change in the Democratic base, and it started with the Hillary Clinton campaign.

resident Donald Trump’s December 18 announcement that he intends to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria produced some isolated support in the anti-war wings of both parties, but largely provoked bipartisan outrage among in Washington’s reflexively pro-war establishment. Both GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the country’s most reliable war supporters, and Hillary Clinton, who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient hawkishness, condemned Trump’s decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror jargon. But while official Washington united in opposition, new polling data from Morning Consult/Politico shows that a large plurality of Americans support Trump’s Syria withdrawal announcement: 49 percent support to 33 percent opposition.

Progressives in the Democratic Party either supported the idea of ending our illegal occupation of Syria, but disagreed on how Trump was doing it (which is an excuse for opposing ending the war), or were silent on it.

However, the most disturbing part was the voters.



But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent. A similar gap is seen among those who voted Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections (28 percent support withdrawal while 54 percent oppose it), as opposed to the widespread support for withdrawal among 2018 GOP voters: 74 percent to 18 percent.

...

Among 2016 Trump voters, there is massive support for withdrawal: 81 percent to 11 percent; Clinton voters, however, oppose the removal of troops from Afghanistan by a margin of 37 percent in favor and 47 percent opposed.

Who in the f*ck are these people?

Back in 2002 a majority of Democratic lawmakers opposed invading Iraq, as did a majority of Democratic voters.

This is despite being smeared as traitors by neocons.

Now the Democrats are aligned with the neocons.



The party’s base spent the Bush-Cheney years denouncing war on terror policies, such as assassinations, drones, and Guantánamo as moral atrocities and war crimes, only to suddenly support those policies once they became hallmarks of the Obama presidency. But what’s happening here is far more insidious. A core ethos of the anti-Trump #Resistance has become militarism, jingoism, and neoconservatism. Trump is frequently attacked by Democrats using longstanding Cold War scripts wielded for decades against them by the far right: Trump is insufficiently belligerent with U.S. enemies; he’s willing to allow the Bad Countries to take over by bringing home U.S. soldiers; his efforts to establish less hostile relations with adversary countries is indicative of weakness or even treason. At the same time, Democratic policy elites in Washington are once again formally aligning with neoconservatives, even to the point of creating joint foreign policy advocacy groups (a reunion that predated Trump).

Keep in mind that Trump does not equal the GOP. Mainstream Republicans in Washington are generally warhawks. But it's those very same Republicans that Dems are embracing.



After Clinton managed to botch the most winnable election of all time, mainstream liberal America was plunged into a panic that has been fueled at every turn by the plutocratic mass media, which have seized upon unthinking cultish anti-Trumpism to advance the cause of US military interventionism even further with campaigns like the sanctification of John McCain and the rehabilitation of George W Bush. Trump is constantly attacked as being too soft on Moscow despite having already dangerously escalated a new cold war against Russia which some experts are saying is more dangerous than the one the world miraculously survived.

Gabbard also hasn't been sufficiently Russiagate-crazy for Democrats, so that'll be another point of contention. The basic grievance is that she personifies all the scary, comically overblown "red-brown alliance" stuff they've been screaming about for 2+ years. — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 12, 2019

On the other end of the spectrum is Tulsi Gabbard, who when she announced her presidential bid said, “There is one main issue that is central to the rest, and that is the issue of war and peace.”

Gabbard is a mixed race congresswoman (of American Samoan descent), Hindu, and US Army reserve officer one would think she would be lionized by the liberals given her "impeccable identity-politics bona fides".

Yet liberals hate her with a passion even greater than the right-wing.

“Assad’s ‘mouthpiece’ in Washington” —RNC welcomes Tulsi Gabbard to the presidential race with a moniker that many liberals probably agree with as well pic.twitter.com/WJJrP1aJv1 — Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) January 12, 2019

“Tulsi Gabbard has an even bigger problem than her lack of experience – it’s that she has no base of support,” Republican National Committee (RNC) spokesman Michael Ahrens argued in a statement. "Liberals think she’s too conservative, conservatives think she’s too liberal, and just about everyone thinks her coziness with Bashar al-Assad is disturbing.”

Her "coziness" means she talked to Assad once.

Gabbard's horrible sin is honestly and morally opposing pointless wars. To do this one must actually talk to those that we oppose.

Thus liberals today support pointless wars.

Democrats often use Identity Politics to oppose and undermine people with progressive values, like Bernie Sanders. But Gabbard checks off so many Identity Politics boxes that they openly and shamelessly oppose her because she isn't a warmonger.

Markos and the rest of the unthinking mob on DKos hate her so much that they have a hard time even putting sentences together.

The liberal media are the most shameless warmongers of all.

These are the Tulsi Gabbard fans—Russian propaganda outlet and a KKK grand puppy dragon or whatever pretentious-ass title they give themselves. https://t.co/v3XXH8NAUO — Markos Moulitsas (@markos) January 12, 2019

On the other side of the spectrum, right-wing pundits are starting to make sense.

Don't get me wrong. There are still issues that Republicans are obviously worse. For instance, there is no anti-Wall Street or anti-Billionaire caucus in the GOP, while there is at least a minority anti-Wall Street and anti-Billionaire caucus in the Democratic Party.

The GOP is unquestionably anti-union (which is a deal breaker for me), while the Dems are just indifferent.

I'm sure there are other examples.

But since the Dems became more pro-FTAs and more pro-war, it's become debatable which party is more evil.