We’re gonna just continue to blame the Dems while ignoring that a massive online propaganda campaign brainwashed enough morons into voting again for a convicted felon who tried to steal the last election, and already had a dogshit first term? Even if you “fix” the dems, the propaganda will still paint whoever is representing them as worse than the fascist puppets on the other side, and the masses of dimwits will swallow it while thinking they’re enlightened centrists.
Biden spent four years massively pro-union, the Inflation Reduction Act was massive and not marginal with the job creation all over, and his administration remembered that the Sherman and Clayton Acts exist and used them. They have been everything a good leftist could want.
We live in a post-truth world, and the massive media oligarchy is in full effect, driven by the editorial desires of the hyper-rich. Dems could run Jesus and lose, at this point.
America should get rid of that two party nonsense and start forming a proper government.
Those founding fathers would be ashamed.
Those founding fathers discovered they had a two party system immediately and did nothing to prevent it from being cemented in place.
DNC:
People going around claiming the Democrats are neoliberal immediately after they leaned super hard into unions is some serious gaslighting horseapples.
Pfft. This is a dumb interpretation. They just want clear leadership that is outspoken. Kamala is too composed and not owning the conservatives enough.
As much as I like the high road, she didn’t tip any new voters in her direction.
The message to
Democratsneo-libs and neo-cons, is clear: you must dumpneoliberal economicscorporatism.Translation: “Change who you are. Completely, not superficially. Just don’t be who you are and have been.”
Which won’t happen because that would require them to turn their back on the donor class, corporate media and lobbyists.
So what can be done?
As an outsider it seemed more like they had an image problem than an issue with their concrete policies. Obviously it could be both but I got a sense people believed the dems were out of touch.
That is because the democrats have abandoned.the working class and use guilt and loyalty to effectively fool the middle class into policies favoring the wealthy.
Neither party is responsive to the working class because hourly wages are too low vs prices to allow for significant political donations.
So until actrue 3rd party catches the working class and moves american politics leftward, its just fewer and fewer with more and more.
Hence, keep people stupid so they dont figure it out.
There were plenty of problems with the concrete policies on offer.
‘most lethal military’, tough on crime, secure the border… it was ridiculous to see how far right the supposed left went in search of votes. Harris’s platform looked more like Trump’s from 2016 than it did Hilary’s.
A cracked brick wall is more visible than a sinking foundation.
“The DNC hears ya. The DNC don’t care.”
If the electorate consisted of 9 people who were doing fine, and one person that wasn’t, we would have 9 no votes and one person that voted to destroy the system that allowed the 9 to be doing fine.
Sadly this is true, but that’s the price for not participating in democracy
One of the biggest unforced failures of the Biden administration is the reported complaint of Joe Biden that people weren’t acknowledging the economic turnaround.
Biden did a lot of good for the economy! Massive stimulus via the infrastructure bill, a sensible approach to recovery from Covid, acknowledging that recovery from an inflationary period would be necessarily painful, etc. He was a steady hand at a time when America needed one.
But what sends me into apoplexy, what really grinds my gears, is that this motherfucker was so out of touch to believe that this was a messaging problem. He felt that Americans had not yet heard of his accomplishments in turning around the tide of economic misfortune, how badly the republicans would have bungled it, and how the next four years would have been a period of huge growth based on the previous four.
All of these points were absolutely true.
But there is no housing supply. The economic pressures are so hard on young people that their biological impulses are changing.
Young empiricists have taken a look at the climate and have correctly deduced that their future is full of pain in the absence of truly radical action.
And Kamala’s strategy for relieving pressure on the housing market was a $25,000 credit for first time home buyers? In an environment where housing prices have doubled and tripled in fifteen years?
I am one of the very few members of the public that attended Feinstein’s funeral at San Francisco City Hall. And the only one there that day wearing sneakers. I attended her lying in state, paid my respects to a committed civil servant, and in the book, cautioned Pelosi against a similar, “ignominious” end. Then I hear that Pelosi has filed to run again in 2026. As an 86 year old.
At some point the Democratic leadership looks less out of touch and more actively malicious considering the serious and existential crises of the young and near-young in the United States.
The country is in decline because of its extreme individualism, its lack of compassion, and its ruthless “politics is the art of the possible” approach by leaders who could not possibly inspire with bold leadership.
The party is chasing local maxima.
And Kamala’s strategy for relieving pressure on the housing market was a $25,000 credit for first time home buyers?
This was also going to be coupled with a large tax credit to construction companies for building single-family homes and another tax credit for selling them to first-time homeowners.
Taken together, that all sounds pretty good. But I think what really needs to change is zoning laws. The problem is that the federal government has no control over the zoning ordinances of local communities. Hell, state governments barely have control over that. Usually whenever a rezoning of a neighborhood is brought up, it causes a firestorm at city council meetings.
Very well said. I hated Harris’ “economic plan.” It wasn’t going to make a dent. It might get some people in rural passover states afford a home, which is great for them, but would do nothing but maybe raise costs of entry level tiny condos in any city.
But I do think they accomplished a lot in Biden’s term. If you compare the US’ inflation to other 1st world countries, we recovered far better. We were moving in the right direction. It would have been far worse with Republicans.
And they accomplished all that with a festering rot of DINO obstructionists in the senate, and a republican controlled House. They did an amazing job with the limitations they had.
But they didn’t adequately lay the blame in the right hands. They didn’t address greedy corporate Housing speculation. They tried and failed to reign in “shrinkflation”. And they failed to bring some sanity to the immigrant blaming, and instead somewhat joined in on it.
Harris’ solution to the housing problem really annoyed me. There are so many other more effective ways to go about making housing more affordable but she just ignored them. This, in my uneducated opinion, would have also motivated more voters.
In a more general sense, the mainstream Democrats have always had a difficult time with messaging which is nothing new but really showed itself in this past election.
Democrats think that if you just spend time educating the voting population on all the good their policies will do then the voter will make a rational decision in the voting booth. And in the exit polling that is exactly who voted for Harris, highly educated people that like that kind of lecture type of politicking. But most people don’t vote like that - they don’t want a professor in the oval office they want a cheerleader.
Disagree on only one point: the time for a cheerleader has passed.
The people now want a Teddy Roosevelt progressive. A person who physically kicks asses and legally enforces regulations on the Corporates who are undermining the country’s well-being to pad their pockets. A leader who is tough, speaks plainly, and has grit and vision for the conservation of natural resources.
None of these qualities describe any current members of the Democratic party.
There’s a lesson in Teddy though. The industry republicans did their damnedest to sideline him and would’ve succeeded if McKinley hadn’t been shot. They put him in the vice presidency in the first place to get him out of the New York governors house.
Yep. Lots of lessons in our historical precedents that Dems pretend don’t exist.
Nevertheless, I would 100% vote for Teddy Roosevelt’s corpse
Now what exactly did trump offer in terms of the economy?
Lies. But rubes love lies because they’re palatable and don’t create the challenge of critical thinking.
And that’s why HE wins. You can’t be someone like that if you’re on the back foot (incumbent). Hell just lie, the media and podcasters will let him get away with it because he’s the challenger. And you’re doomed. It’s that simple. You’re not beating that.
Not by moving to the right like Harris did. You don’t get Republican votes by showing off how you can break solidarity with Muslims, the undocumented, and trans people. You don’t get Republican votes by parading around not one but two Cheneys. If you’re a Democrat, there’s NOTHING you can do to get Republican votes.
But these actions disillusion your base and they stay home.
I would argue that neither the Harris campaign, nor her DNC masters actually wanted to win.
The Dems cherish their “underdog” persona and by losing, they know they’ll be getting even more donations from frantic, fearful Americans. And by losing, the Dems don’t actually have to produce any governance results. They can just sit back and wag their fingers at voters with a smug, “I told you this would happen,” face.
Democrats: “Understood. We must try harder to win over the center-right.”
I’ve been called center right but I wouldn’t describe myself so. I’m right and left. It balances in the center but most centrist positions are corporatist and authoritative, and I hate both. Man did this election ever suck. I’m always stoked for the primaries and hoping to get a free thinker in the mix but this year we didn’t even get primaries.
“center right”:
Honestly, we should have seen it coming with all the “nostalgia” for the Good Old Days of GWB.
Clinton is the last era before the shit hit the fan.
Enron, 9.11, the mideast war series, 2008, etc.
And here I am nostalgic for the good ol days of Obama.
I do miss when my tax dollars got spent to keep American corporate greed from crashing the global economy, again, and merely continuing the neo-Crusades instead of escalating them.
That was a nice almost decade.
This was literally what the Harris campaign walked away saying.
Democrats:
“Progressive roots”?
For some people FDR is the closest thing they can imagine to be progressive politics. The progressive-conservative switch in the Republican and Democratic Parties always makes for weird statements. You’ve got neo-nazis and neo-confederates controlling the Republican Party and Republicans say they are the party of Lincoln.
Lol, maybe that’s what progressives need to do just invade Republican politics and take IT over!
Switch the sides again!
Might be easier than getting Democrats to treat progressives as valued members of their constituency.
That’s what Democrats have been trying to do since Bill Clinton. The Republicans have already been captured by the MAGA movement, where as the Democrats have yet to be captured by a movement. So for progressives and socialists, it should be easier to capture the Democrats.
It’s like pokemon. =p
I wouldn’t be surprised if Tankies unironically liked Democrats better when they were the KKK.
With how eagerly centrists have been throwing vulnerable minorities under the bus, it’s clear that they bitterly regret the civil rights act and the voting rights act because they cost the party the support of the bigots they love dearly.
I’m black, the Dems have not thrown me under the bus.
Give 'em time. This last election cycle they got Muslims, the undocumented, and trans people.
Dems didn’t overturn affirmative action.
Dems didn’t kill the police brutality bill in 2020.
Dems aren’t the ones fighting tooth and nail to keep confederate flags and statues up.
It’s pretty obvious to me whose tryna to throw black people under the bus.
If you think they won’t abandon you in order to chase nonexistent gettable Republican votes, look at who they already abandoned.
Republicans are obviously worse and I never said they weren’t. That doesn’t mean that Democrats are reliable allies, because unless your name is Netanyahu, they just aren’t.
Removed by mod
No he’s not.
Removed by mod
No I’m not.
Anyone who uses the word “tankie” as a pejorative is a dumbass and needs to touch grass. Same goes for people who defend people’s use of the word “tankie”.
The term tankie is used to vilify leftists and sow division amongst leftists. It is also used by chronically online liberals to describe anyone who is left of center.
It’s used as a pejorative for authoritarian “leftists”, e.g. people who could barely be considered left-wing and have more in common with right-wing authoritarians, and who praise authoritarian governments like Russia/China.
Other people on the left don’t want to be associated with that shit, and rightfully so.
Tankies aren’t leftists, they’re state capitalists which is an even stupider version of capitalism than the normal kind. Even the Chinese abandoned you foolish tankies.
deleted by creator
GIven that I’ve had Tankies try to tell me the fight for LGBT rights isn’t worth it because it’s a “distraction” and “actually racist to force other cultures to conform to Western Values”
Yeah…
You gladly voted for a genocider and were ready to throw foreigners under the bus in exchange for your own safety. Now you get neither. Good job, loser.
If I didn’t vote for Kamela, how exactly would that have changed the outcome? This doesn’t really work when it’s not my actions that caused this problem.
Hm, who did you vote for? The genocide enabler or the genocide enabler?
I’ll wait while you perform whatever mental gymnastics you need to rationalize how your vote is different than everyone elses.
I voted for Bin Laden. A write-in.
My favorite thing about 10hr old accounts is how funny they are.
Given that centrists are parroting “Boys in girl’s sports” bigotry in their own ads, it’s not like y’all weren’t itching to abandon trans people.
My message to the dnc
Fuck you we elected Bernie and you ran Hillary and then we elected Bernie and you gave us Biden. Fuck you.
They knew Bernie might actually improve the lives of Americans and our rich overlords shudder at the thought of that.
Who elected Bernie in 2020? Biden wiped the floor with him. Maybe more people should’ve voted for Bernie in the primary then.
I mean, the commenter is overstating what happened in 2016 and 2020, but Biden did not, “wipe the floor,” with him. Obama and the DNC convinced every centrist to drop out, consolidating the moderate vote around Biden, while Warren stayed in, splitting the progressive vote, and Bloomberg used his personal wealth to run anti-Bernie ads. Then Biden had to ask Bernie to help him craft a platform just so he could be electable. It’s less that, “Biden wiped the floor with him,” and more that, “the entire Democratic party lined up to block Bernie so Biden could limp over the finish line.”
If Bernie can’t win the primary under those conditions how can he win against the GOP and Trump and the billionaire class and all the industry lobbyist that don’t want him in office? They aren’t going to play fair or nice.
Yeah, but the Republicans don’t have as much control over the general elections as Democrats do over the primary. They don’t get to control who gets on the ballot, they don’t get to set the schedule for a months-long voting process, they don’t have superdelegates to tip the scales…primaries are an internal process set up by the parties to give them maximum influence, not a level playing field.
Democrats don’t run attack ads against the other primary candidates. Running as a primary candidate doesn’t require the amount of funding that a presidential election campaign requires. Unfortunately I don’t think Bernie would get any air time if he was just funded by grassroots donations.
Democrats don’t run attack ads against the other primary candidates.
Guess no one told Bloomberg that. Also, we’ve just come through the second election where Trump won despite spending far less than the Democrats. I’m sure the billionaire class would go hard against Sanders, but spending isn’t everything in campaigns anymore, especially against populists.
Russias invasion of Ukraine needed Trump to win. Their bot farms aren’t on the books. Billionaires were literally buying votes and that wasn’t counted as campaign spending. To claim Trump won because spending isn’t everything in campaigns anymore is to ignore how Trump won.
Which is normal politics. Why didn’t Warren and Bernie make a deal then?
Face it- if he can’t win a primary then that’s on him. And this is coming from someone who voted for him in 2020.
Point being- people need to stop acting like there is some mythical force stopping progressives. If they truly were that numerous then Bernie would’ve been elected as the candidate in 2020 (2016 I’ll give you the DNC fuckery.)
Moreover, they could elect AOCs all over the country too. But guess what- either they aren’t that numerous or they’re lazy as shit. Either way, you get “centrist” candidates like Biden. People seriously need to wake up and either start voting en masse in the primaries or realize that America is just not that progressive.
Buddy, half your comment history is whining about non-voters costing Harris the election, and you’re gonna turn around and say, “less people voted for Bernie, deal with it?” Bernie had the entire party lined up to block him; name another candidate the party has done that to. Meanwhile, Harris had a level playing field with Trump and he wiped the floor with her.
Face it- if she can’t win an election then that’s on her. And this is coming from someone who voted for her in 2024. People seriously need to wake up and either start voting en masse in the general elections or realize that America is just not that moderate.
or realize that America is just not that moderate.
I think we can look at the House of Representatives for a better representation of how moderate/progressive the electorate is. Where a statewide or national election requires a lot of money, a single district is much more accessible for a candidate with a smaller staff to campaign in.
I think the real crux of our problem is the distance between how people feel about individual progressive policies vs how they feel about progressive people who espouse all those policies. The right has been very successful at linking the culture war issues to progressives and demonizing them as SJWs, to distract from actual policy proposals.
I think we can look at the House of Representatives for a better representation of how moderate/progressive the electorate is.
Sure, as long as we ignore that the Democratic Party protects centrists and actively opposes progressives in primaries.
The national party does not invest all that heavily into individual district primary races. When a few tens of thousands of people at most are voting, there’s just only so far money can go. It’s very feasible for a candidate with a small staff of volunteers to simply canvas the district themselves.
I’m afraid that conspiracy is not the reason we don’t have more progressives in the House.
I don’t think that’s entirely correct. If what you were saying about progressive politicians were true, Bernie Sanders would not be the most popular politician in the country. I think the real problem is that the Democrats are no longer credible messengers of a working class message. I think that’s why Dan Osborne won by not only running as an independent, but flat out rejecting the local Democrats endorsement.
Also, it’s important to remember that it was the centrists who pivoted towards culture war issues when they no longer had a progressive economic message they could run on. As Hillary Clinton said during the 2016 primary:
If we broke up the big banks tomorrow…would that end racism? Would that end sexism? Would that end discrimination against the LGBT community? Would that make people feel more welcoming to immigrants overnight?
Bernie is the most popular politician in the country? Regardless though, what popularity he has does not extend to all people who espouse progressive ideas, so other factors are at play.
I also don’t see that as a pivot as much as a slow march towards equal rights that dems have been fighting for for decades. And even so, it does not have much to do with the messaging strategy employed by the right. We’re not fighting against facts, we’re fighting against a messaging framework that paints progressive people as bad while ignoring the content of progressive policy proposals.
It is non-voters. Whether they’re left leaning or center or whatever really doesn’t matter. They’re going to get it one way or the other. They had a chance to drive the car more left but decided it wasn’t worth showing up so now it’s going full speed right wing back to the 50s and worse.
Congrats?
I mean, you’re basically making my point. People who don’t vote decide the election with their inaction. Whether it was not coming out for Bernie or not coming out for Kamala, it’s the same thing.
So yes, thank you for proving my point better than I could. I appreciate the assist.
Bonus- Bernie finished behind Kamala in Vermont. So let’s not act like progressivism is some silver bullet here.
Buddy, you’re proving mine. If Bernie’s loss in the primary is proof that Americans aren’t that progressive, then Harris and Hillary’s losses in the general prove that Americans aren’t that centrist. You can’t have it both ways.
So that would mean that the majority of the electorate is far-right, which would make no sense given how strongly progressive ballot measures overperformed against the Harris campaign, or why Bernie polled more favorably against Trump than Clinton or Biden. Somehow, Americans would have disliked centrist and progressive politicians and like far-right politicians, but for some reason prefer progressive policies, and also favor the most high profile progressive in the Senate…or, Occam’s Razor, people prefer progressives, but the Democrats keep rat-fucking them in the primaries in favor of centrists.
Harris and Hillary’s losses in the general prove that Americans aren’t that centrist.
Expect Trump took the center voters. I think we all see through him, but the center voter loves him for economy and jobs.
It makes perfect sense when you realize places like Missouri and Florida voted for abortion rights yet also voted for Republicans and trump all over too.
And again, there’s no big magical force keeping progressives out of winning primaries. They just don’t. So again, my point, either people aren’t that progressive or progressives fucking suck at voting. Either way, same result.
Moreover, we’ll use your metric of progressive policies winning over Harris and analyze why she won more over Bernie himself. Must mean people are more moderate right?
I recall that in 2016, it was apparent to me that those in control of the media were intentionally giving Bernie as little coverage as possible. The stuff they were doing was blatant, once you became aware of it.
I remember seeing a news segment where they said something like, “The current leading Democrat in the primaries is Hillary Clinton. Yeah she’s doing great. Also in 3rd place is Martin O’Malley or something.” They would just blatantly omit Bernie.
I kept seing stuff like this and it really made an impression on me. Then, when the whole GameStop stock thing happened and all those private investors were making tons of money, taking it from rich hedgefunds, the media started telling everyone how dumb they would be to try to get in on the action. They were protecting the interests of the rich. It was a little intimidating to see them all do it, implying who was really in control of information and public perception.
So, I disagree. It’s not as simple as, “America is not that progressive.”
That was back when Facebook was actually doing something useful: there were so many huge Bernie rallies posted to Facebook that the MSM was forced to acknowledge him. Now that social media has been “fixed”, we won’t see anything like that again.
That’s entirely the media and rich people. How does that excuse people not voting for Bernie in 2020?
What the media presents has a strong influence on public perception. When the races are close, they only need to sway a few percent of voters.
Part of me thinks Bernie never really wanted to be president, I think he thinks he can do more good as a senior senator pushing the DNC left while trying to stop the right from whatever evil they’re planning this week, and maybe he can, but so far that hasn’t worked very well. If he and the squad broke ties with the DNC and started their own party, and were able to pull enough of the left off the couch and away from the DNC to make the DNC the “spoiler” that needed to “fall in line or else Trump wins” that would be the best imo
Kind of a reverse Freedom Caucus. I could potentially see that working. Then again, people say AOC is no longer pure, etc. so I’m not sure progressives have the stomach to stick together long enough for that to work.
They’d need a solidly progressive platform… The individuals matter less than the goals… Leave guns and abortion on the table for later… Stick to all the things we mostly all agree on. Keep the messaging simple too… “Life sucks. It sucks because you don’t have enough money…YOU deserve to be making more money for whatever you are doing. The corporations and billionaires are taking YOUR money, and we’re going to take it back and give it to you”… Maybe follow up with a bunch of times rich people got more at everyone else’s expense.
Now this I agree on. They don’t dumb down the message nearly enough.
that comment confused me as well. with hilary. yeah but 2020 honestly people wanted more of a conservative sure thing because some yahoos thought they would shake things up in 2016 by letting trump win. hmmm. I wonder what type of canidate will be in 2024 and whos fault it will be that its not a liberal enough canidate.
Leftist really live in a bubble. A guy loses the primaries TWICE, but somehow Dems screwed him over, lol
Problem is like a lot of things, even from the far right as well, there is truth to it. Democrats put in the super delegates so their primaries are not very democratic but its because they wanted to maintain a centerist position. It is funny that I would see someone complain about bidens age then say we should have bernie in. I wonder what we would be like if dems had not done the super delegates? They might have went left the way republicans went right and we might have had an actual centerist party come up.
Biden is the most left leaning president we’ve had in the modern era.
sure but that just shows the effect the super delegates have had in the modern era.
Bernie lost the popular vote in the primaries twice. It’s mostly white guys that want him, honestly, which isn’t a popular sentiment but it’s true.
He doesn’t speak to the problems of marginalized communities who make up a large portion of the Democratic base.
