Summary

Historians suggest Democrats might have fared better against Donald Trump by embracing the economic issues championed by Senator Bernie Sanders, who has long pushed for a focus on “bread-and-butter” concerns for working-class voters.

Despite Kamala Harris’s progressive policies, polls showed Trump was favored on economic issues, particularly among working-class and Hispanic voters.

Historian Leah Wright Rigueur argued that Sanders’ messaging on economic struggles could be key for future Democratic strategies.

Sanders himself criticized the party for “abandoning” the working class, which he said has led to a loss of support across racial lines.

  • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    6 days ago

    Dems imbraced the race to the bottom instead of being a true opposition party. I voted for them this time around but never again unless they make a platform surrounding core left prencipals and left leadership. Many within my communities gave up on political means to help their communities and threw themselves into volunteering, activism, and self sustainability. You can’t demand bottomless support and obedience from your base while ignoring their cries for help.

    Dems said they are the party of science and facts but wouldn’t support universal health care or simply stop sending weapons to Isreal. If they were just as ravenous as republican are, can you honestly say we couldn’t achieve those good things?

    Dems said the Supreme court and justice system was courupt, but never even investigated the court or made cuts to the militarization of the police forces. Police are still killing people at the same rates with no real accountability. If the Supreme Court was left leaning Republicans would have expanded the court to make it right leaning.

    Just do what Republicans do to get there way but for good. I honestly can’t think of one dem policy that has been as impactful as some of the top Republican changes in the past 50 years.

    Ultimately we need to come together and demand better because if the dems don’t change it’ll be 50 more years of being steamrolled.

    • telllos@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      Honestly, your democratic party is very right wing to most of European. And you saying people give up on politics and turn to sctivism is so sad.

      If the government doesn’t take care of his poor, minorities, what are they doing.

      • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        6 days ago

        If the government doesn’t take care of his poor, minorities, what are they doing.

        Facilitating the transfer of wealth to the richest fraction of the population.

      • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        The government and the companies in the US work together as legal shields protecting the wealthy and money siphoning systems from the public to the wealthy.

        For example: Johnson&Johnson poison babies with asbestos in their talc baby powder. Instead of the Johnson family losing money or facing any consequences, the company and its employees bear the repercussions. The government investigates at its own pace and might be defunded in the areas relating to investigations. The government doesn’t guarantee health care so people don’t even know they have issues from asbestos because they can’t even go in to be diagnosed without significant cost. Accessing legal help for a class action can also be difficult. These large companies also have huge legal teams to defend them including lobbyists who represent companies and as their sole job lobby the government. And then the government also gives tax breaks to Johnson and Johnson, and nearly free publicly funded research from university research and students who not only paid to go to school, but don’t receive money for these student publications. And then J&J can take that research and profit off it.

        America is a giant work camp.

    • shadowfax13@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 days ago

      Just do what Republicans do to get there way but for good. I honestly can’t think of one dem policy that has been as impactful as some of the top Republican changes in the past 50 years.

      its not a bug but feature. They exist to sabotage people interest and giving them false hope of an alternative. we have become one party two candidates system, where one markets racism other wokeness, both of which cost their mega-donors nothing.

  • boaratio@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    4 days ago

    That’s the real problem with historians. They always talk about the past and not the future.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    58
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    5 days ago

    I don’t really know how the Democratic Party is expected to steer out of the center-right ditch, though. With all the dark money calling the shots, I mean. Bernie is the exception that proves the rule.

    The electorate is actually far more progressive on the issues than the corporate media lets on. But the minute the Democratic Party were to embrace Bernie-style positions? You can bet that not only the “liberal media” would declare this sO vErY eXtReMe, but all the big money would be spending against them, and spending against them hard. Think it’s bad now where crypto, Elon, and the Washington Post are tilting against the Democrats? Imagine they actually embraced progressives…

    Not saying I love it, I just don’t know what the answer is.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      5 days ago

      The electorate is actually far more progressive on the issues than the corporate media lets on. But the minute the Democratic Party were to embrace Bernie-style positions? You can bet that not only the “liberal media” would declare this sO vErY eXtReMe, but all the big money would be spending against them, and spending against them hard. Think it’s bad now where crypto, Elon, and the Washington Post are tilting against the Democrats? Imagine they actually embraced progressives…

      It would be worse than you imagine. Wouldn’t need the liberal media or the big money to move against it. People don’t translate policy positions into support for candidates. They vote on vibes, and any candidate espousing consistently left-wing positions sounds like a dangerous socialist to a good 2/3s of the country.

      Not saying I love it, I just don’t know what the answer is.

      Education. We just signed over the official apparatus to the fascists, though. So, uh, it’s gonna be much harder than it should have been.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 days ago

          Not education in the sense of teaching basic literacy and such, political education. Class consciousness, if one prefers such terms.

          • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            5 days ago

            Ah not sure if you watched the video. But agreed. I’m not sure it will work but we better damn try our best in our personal lives. Can’t trust society to help guide anymore :/

            • PugJesus@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              5 days ago

              Ah, no, I didn’t. I generally don’t watch videos. I just read what you said about numeracy and moved on to the point about other forms of education being my concern.

              • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                5 days ago

                Haha that’s totally fair. I generally don’t either. But that one surprised me a bit. Friend at work shared it to show the context of how confused we all are due to what we are objectively told to feel. Rather than HOW we feel.

          • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            5 days ago

            The essential outcome of the study. The better you are at understanding numbers and math. The worse you are at interpreting data that counters your beliefs. Like laughably bad. 40%+ish bad.

        • Gorillazrule@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          5 days ago

          I watched this video when it came out and I disagree with the findings in it, because to me it seems less to indicate that people reject logic because of political affiliations, and more people are critical of studies that contradict prior knowledge.

          People interpreting results on the skin cream have absolutely no frame of reference. There isn’t a brand name associated with the skin cream that might have some kind of recognition for people to have prior knowledge. The study that they are presented with is the first time they are seeing anything about this skin cream.

          People weighing in on gun control, have a lot of prior knowledge on the topic. Now whether all this knowledge is based on facts or data is obviously questionable. But regardless they have prior experience with the topic. So naturally you are going to be critical of a study showing you results that directly contradict your prior knowledge. Also from the video it doesn’t seem clear that they are asking them to specifically treat it like math problem and make judgements based on the study alone. They are asked whether they think gun control is effective. And while obviously they have the infographic right in front of them, most people are not going to base their judgements solely on that data alone.

          To put it another way, what if the study was based on something non-political, like say whether smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day improves or worsened lung capacity over the course of a decade? I think most people would be heavily critical of the study that shows smoking improved lung capacity even if the data they are presented reflects that. And I don’t think it would be because they are simply rejecting logic and numeracy based on affiliations. It’s because they have prior information and knowledge that directly contradicts the singular study that is presented to them.

          And this is ignoring the fact that while the statistic they use to measure the effectiveness for the cream is very tangible and direct. Either the rash improves or it worsens. And you can make direct comparisons with the control groups. In the gun control study you are comparing different sets of cities, ones that have gun control laws and ones that don’t. You aren’t comparing the same set of cities before and after gun control. So already this is a poor study. Then to make matters worse the statistic they use to measure the effectiveness is “crime worsened” and “crime improved”. Not crime committed with firearms. Or even just violent crimes. Just crimes. And in cities where gun control laws have been implemented, crime is naturally going to go up because there is a new law for people to break. Anybody who isn’t following the gun control laws in that city are committing a crime whereas people in the cities without those laws are doing the exact same thing, but it’s just not counted towards “crime” because it hasn’t been outlawed.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        and any candidate espousing consistently left-wing positions sounds like a dangerous socialist to a good 2/3s of the country.

        Harris just demonstrated that running to the right is no longer a winning proposition.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        5 days ago

        The “vibes” campaign by the Dems just failed hard.

        And why is it that only the right should get to move “vibes” by sticking with extreme positions? Especially as things like universal health care, public housing, strong unions or debt free education are just normal in other western countries.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 days ago

          The “vibes” campaign by the Dems just failed hard.

          Turns out the “Please don’t vote for fascism” vibe isn’t very appealing to the country.

          And why is it that only the right should get to move “vibes” by sticking with extreme positions? Especially as things like universal health care, public housing, strong unions or debt free education are just normal in other western countries.

          I didn’t say we should give up any of those positions. I was saying policy positions do not consistently translate into votes, and the US electorate is easily spooked by anything they’re told resembles ‘socialism’.

          • hraegsvelmir@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            5 days ago

            Turns out the “Please don’t vote for fascism” vibe isn’t very appealing to the country.

            That was one vibe. Unfortunately, the rest of the vibe from the Democrats have been, “Well, things are actually pretty good, just look at our charts. Economy is doing great!”. I think that’s where they really failed the vibe check, telling people not that they will improve things in a major way, but that the status quo is mostly acceptable and they’ll keep things from getting worse.

            Change was the order of the day, and they ran a campaign on stability instead.

        • jmf@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          5 days ago

          Because selfish vibes driven by greed and fear come easy when education is lacking.

    • wellheh@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      38
      ·
      5 days ago

      At this point maybe the democrats just need to embrace these hard positions and normalize them. The gop doesn’t appear to care how radical their stances are and they get votes regardless of the racism. Trump’s whole shtick has been normalizing bad behavior and gaslighting the other party into thinking any wrong they do is a gotcha- they’re operating on two very different rulesets.

        • wellheh@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 days ago

          Hooked on election funding despite it not really doing anything for her despite the huge advantage? Yeah that’s a good strategy.

      • DiagnosedADHD@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        edit-2
        5 days ago

        Democrats (DNC and donors) don’t want to win with a progressive. They’d rather have Trump. They’ll never embrace anyone like Bernie.

    • Kichae@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      The thing is, we’ve seen what the working class wants: Not concrete policy that will help them, but to have their feelings of struggle, outrage, and anger acknowledged and reflected back to them.

      The Democrats could have radical pro-worker, pro-working-class reforms in their policy platform, but if what they’re broadcasting is “things are great” energy, or “there are bigger fish to fry” energy, then they’re going to get ignored.

      The Democrat’s talking points have focused on the health of American institutions. That’s the thing they’ve repeatedly signalled is most important to them.

      It’s not what’s most important to most households. It’s actually pretty far removed from the top of their lists of concerns.

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    150
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    6 days ago

    It is absolutely clear now. The DNC is a private company whose main function is to fund raise, period. If they also win an election then that’s great, but if it comes to a choice between winning and raising money, they will choose raising money. They will never move to the left to win voters if it will cost them fund raising opportunities from the center and right.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        4 days ago

        That never stopped you before. Just scream that they’re a trumper like you did when you were wrong about genocide and didn’t want to admit it.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      31
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      6 days ago

      This honestly makes so much more sense than anything else. I think you nailed it. Republicans are motivated by money and exerting social control so they write up manifestos (p2025), take over the courts, work hard to disenfranchise voters, lie, cheat, anything is on the table. The DNC does indeed seem fairly comfortable with losing by comparison, despite the fact that the leftist ideals they supposedly dabble in create a moral imperative to never lose. I wonder if Republicans fucking pay the DNC money to run these candidates we all know aren’t the best. They’re just good enough to get votes against mother fucking Trump. But not always good enough to win, barely good enough when they are, typically.

      • mamotromico@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        Republicans don’t need to pay the DNC, both are funded by the same billionaires most of the time.

      • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        5 days ago

        The democrats represent the group of americans that think money and “american ingenuity” can solve all problems. No problem is a real problem because we can always solve it if we just try real hard to make the current thing better.

        Thats why they are the status quo party, its literally their whole founding belief.

        The republicans are a party of changing backwards, which only works sometimes, usually when people are upset: “remember when things weren’t awful…?”

        The rest of the parties are thinking long term and are true parties of change but you need money to make it in politics, or else not enough people even know you exist at the higher political levels. There were I think five “third” parties on my ballot but I only ever heard people talk about one or two of them.

        I’m not sure if its more likely the democrat party collapses out of disinterest and a third party replaces them, or if the democrat party will become a true party of change for the future.

        It could just continue on as the party of “America is amazing and will always be amazing so vote for us for more amazing.”

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      Imo, you’ve got all the prices. However, I would put them in a different order.

      Short answer: Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.

      There’s a small group of king-makers in the US and the candidate who offers them the most becomes president. Recently, the people who decide who gets to be president has started to include social media companies and amazon, who hosts half the Internet. Trump also cozied up to the American owner of the company the owns tiktok. Thats how he won. Trumps also great for social media engagement and news channel views.

      Even candidates who happen to be better than the republican candidate, no democratic hopeful worth being of “the left” will ever be given enough money to become the president of America. Even if they started from a position that would appeal to them, they would have to compromise on everything that made them that in order to be allowed anywhere near the Whitehouse by the American ultra wealthy.

      What you’re seeing isn’t the failure of the Democrats to correctly triangulate but the strength of the American ultra wealthy consent manufacturing machine.

      • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        I don’t disagree those factors are at play, but they’re not as important as you seem to think in this day and age.

        Bernie had real grassroots support and the dems stomped it out. The key is populist rhetoric and speaking about change, the DNC has basically been running on “not Trump” and “well things are bad but they would be worse under Trump.” while that is true, that’s not a winning message, give people something real to fight for and you’ll win support.

        • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          6 days ago

          On the contrary, they’re more important now than they’ve ever been. There also hasn’t been an election where the highest spender didn’t win. Its THE determining factor.

          The same people who fund presidential campaigns for Republicans also spend lots of money on influencing democratic nominee choices. The whole things been captured.

          Its like you all can’t see the woods for the trees, in the politest way possible. You see the state of trump and all the things that make him an aweful candidate and you say “how could the dems not beat that” instead of “what on earth could exert so much influence that even being that terrible couldn’t stop him?”

          There’s no amount of “the dems not having a strong enough message” that overcomes the divide in the candidates, without huge influence. Their campaign wasn’t great but no where close enough to lose to someone like trump, in a fair fight. It would’ve had to have been utterly shocking from start to finish and, as bad as it was, it wasn’t that bad.

          • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            6 days ago

            You really think Trump outspent Harris? You’d be wrong, go look at the data, trump just went on spaces “normal” people listen, such as podcasts, where Harris didn’t.

            He spoke about how America is broken, he gave incorrect reasons why, and is lying about helping people with his policies, but he didn’t lie and tell people everything is fine like the dems

            • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              5 days ago

              Then this would be the first time in modern American history that this has happened. If so, then thats a huge thing and most likely, it’ll be the social media owners now being more disproportionally ppowerful. That would be more in line with everything that’s happened before.

              Youre also relying on accurate self reporting from musk, the republicans and trump there.

              I’m basing what I’ve said on whats happened before. Election spending won’t be reliably verifiable this quickly.

      • shadowfax13@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        4 days ago

        Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.

        you do know that in all last 3 elections dnc outspent gop by more than 50% ? last time we raised less than gop was with bush in 2004. harris raised more than 1.6 billion while trump raised about a billion. 600 million extra money they get is for not having a candidate with anti-rich anti-establishment anti-israel policies. hillary was similar story yet we barely saw her campaigning compared to trump. where does all this money go ?

        compare that to jill stein who raised 2 million. dnc probably spent 10 times that money on just smearing her.

    • OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      6 days ago

      I’m not thrilled with the DNC either, but I’m not buying this whole idea that they are shooting themselves in the foot on purpose. The DNC does better when they win elections.

      In previous elections, the candidate that raised the most money was more likely to win. Also, a moderate Democrat won the last election. They made the decisions they made in this election cycle because they thought it was their best chance of winning.

      I don’t have access to the data that they have to determine whether the leftist that Lemmy wants on the ticket could actually win the general.

      I’d certainly like to believe that it’s just that simple and all the DNC needs to do is put up a pro-Palestine Democratic Socialist and the election is in the bag… I just don’t know if that’s the reality on the ground. If that is not the reality on the ground, are the leftists that stayed home still committed to their protest? Or is there a point at which they would admit that we haven’t had a true leftist on the ticket because a true leftist is not viable?

      I hope someone can put together some clear data to answer that question soon… I’m afraid that a pro-Palestine Socialist will get crushed by AIPAC funded attack ads about Marxism and supporting terrorism that will really stick with moderates, and that no matter how energized the base is it wouldn’t be enough to win the general.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        I’m not thrilled with the DNC either, but I’m not buying this whole idea that they are shooting themselves in the foot on purpose. The DNC does better when they win elections.

        Grey’s Law applies here.

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        23
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        I am not saying that they are losing on purpose. I’m saying that they are making decisions about policies and candidates based on fund raising rather than on attracting voters. On purpose or not, they did shoot themselves in the foot by courting disaffected Republican voters. Everyone knew they were not going to win a lot of those voters, but they sure did rake in a lot of dough. I believe that is their primary motivation.

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 days ago

          I mean the Republicans are doing the same. Lining their pockets as they make decisions. Why is it so foreign to do with one costume rather than the other?

  • foggy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 days ago

    Huh, they spelled elected wrong.

    Fucking Hillary Clinton, are you kidding me.

  • AidsKitty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    5 days ago

    Ive always liked Bernie. Bernie demonstrates the Democratic party would much rather lose with Kamala than win with Bernie. Never thought I would see them campaigning with Dik Cheney, the mask fell away for a few moments on that one.

    • GrymEdm@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      5 days ago

      I legit could not believe they accepted that endorsement at all, much less ran with it as hard as they did.

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      6 days ago

      It’s amazing how much shit is obvious if one pays attention to the big picture and follow the current trends towards their natural conclusions

      This shit really was obvious all along, and I don’t even live in the US