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.
Propaganda doesn’t work if people are happy with their current situation.
BS, there were polls showing the massive disparity between how people responded to “how would you rate the current economy?” and “how would you rate your own financial situation?”, about 70% had said their own situation was good or very good yet a similar amount said that the countries situation was either bad or very bad. Absolutely brainwashed
Do you have links to these polls, please? I would be interested in knowing how they were carried out.
Here, I should’ve included them in the previous comment.
- https://www.axios.com/2023/08/18/americans-economy-bad-personal-finances-good
- https://fortune.com/2024/05/30/economy-personal-finance-consumer-confidence-inflation-unemployment-jobs/
- https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pretty-happy-with-their-finances
This was also quite telling:
–Thanks for the links! I’m having trouble finding the exact questions asked, but when I look at the graph on this article: https://www.axios.com/2024/06/03/americans-finances-us-economy-outlook-divide
It says on the legend “Own finances (doing at least OK)” and “National economy (good or excellent)”. This is subjective, of course, but the bar for “OK” seems a lot lower than “good”. If someone asks how I’m doing and if things are going bad but I don’t want to burden them with my concerns, my go-to is “OK” or “fine” but never “good”. Simply feeling like I’ll get by is enough for “OK” but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m optimistic. This would explain the entire world locking down but personal feelings of finance remaining pretty steady except for a bump UP after massive financial stimulus before a dip back down as greedflation gobbled that all up and then some.
As for misinformed views, those will be influenced by whoever is in power. Assuming the economy remains steady (which is a shaky assumption given many factors), I’m sure the same poll done again would have strong democrat and republican supporters swap their sentiments even though the underlying didn’t change.
As for misinformed views, those will be influenced by whoever is in power.
The point is that Dems generally have more accurate assessments of what’s actually going on. Republicans are notoriously conspiratorial and misinformed and only getting worse. Even with republicans in power, you won’t see such misaligned views from the left.
There can be more than one lesson to learn from an election cycle. We need to learn all of the lessons. Accelerationism was a problem this election cycle. The right-wing information sphere continues to be a problem in the US.
The Democrats are not blameless either. Democratic consultants ran the Harris campaign into the ground and they are refusing to learn the lessons. As one of the two viable political parties, the Democrats are still our most useful tool out of those two political parties, but we have to recognize that they are neoliberals. edit: clarification
Democrats:
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.
People want a populist narrative that promises to deliver meaningful change. Harris refused to do this, in large part because of Democratic consultants. A populist narrative is why Bernie is so popular and why Trump has maintained a base of supporters in the form of the MAGA movement.
I mean, that’s what I said with the fact that her stance was not out there enough and she was composed. It was nuanced and most did not “get it”.
It was nuanced and most did not “get it”.
This is less directed at your argument and more at the general usage of nuance that I’ve seen. Your argument is the most recent example for me anyway. Nuance has been put on a pedestal as this universally good standard. Nuance is only as good as it is useful. For something to be nuanced it needs to get into the weeds of a topic because that level of specificity is essential to or otherwise facilitates a good faith discussion.
This is the word your argument is using.
nuanced
: having nuances : having or characterized by subtle and often appealingly complex qualities, aspects, or distinctions (as in character or tone)
a nuanced performance
Whenever the movie focusses on Van Doren and Goodwin and Stempel, it treats them as nuanced human beings. But other characters in the film … are sketched less fully. — Ken Auletta
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuanced
Since I am subscribed to a descriptivist approach to defining words here is the new definition of nuanced as I have seen it used.
nuanced
2 : having a good or correct quality
Nuanced news, everyone! — Professor Farnsworth
Well I did mean it conventionally. There are many small details to her plan that were discussed but you had to listen to the details to hear the differences between her and Biden. Which most people didn’t hear because she is not outspoken.
Simpson’s Skinner meme, “no, it’s the voters that are wrong”
Both can be true.
But only one lets the party keep ignoring the voters and moving to the right. So that’s the one the party will go with.
Harris and Biden aren’t even neoliberal lol. The message was also not clear because the margins of victory were small. We know Trump is going to tank the economy like last time. It’s a fact. All of his idiot supporters will keep claiming some sort of perceived benefit because of all the other horrible shit he’s going to do that don’t affect in the positive whatsoever, but they will PERCEIVE a win.
The message was also not clear because the margins of victory were small.
Yes, but remember: Their opponent was Trump. They should’ve cinched this election.
I guess it doesn’t matter at this point but it’s always weird to me that opponents can’t seem to acknowledge that Trump is a formidable political opponent. He’s good at talking to and engaging some groups of Americans which is why he managed to win twice.
That’s the thing: It’s some groups. Trump has extreme political appeal with people who will reliably show up to vote for him, but to everyone else he’s a boogyman who motivates them to vote against him. Because of that he gives his opponent enough of an advantage to counteract the effect he has on his voters, but an incompetent candidate who can’t make good use of that advantage (which isn’t accomplished by yelling “I’m not him” all the time) will get unceremoniously steamrolled. It just happens to be that the DNC is hilariously incompetent.
He’s beloved by nazis
You can always rely on Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The post mortem is still on-going but there are two conclusions that ring true for me (so far anyway):
-
Harris failed to reach middle-Americans: she didn’t make many statements about how she was going to tackle inflation and help the average American. Instead she spent WAY too much time trying to secure Republican endorsements.
-
As a result, voters stayed home. Many of middle America aren’t politically active. In the same way, they don’t see themselves being affected by Trump’s policies (for right or for wrong). Many of these voters did vote for Obama but couldn’t be bothered to vote for Harris.
Trump is the first Republican president to win a plurality of votes what 20 years? Trump ran a campaign of “ImMiGrAnTs ArE tHe PrObLeM!1!1!1”. He was so unhinged that voters should have voted against him. The numbers so far show that he won a similar number of votes as he did in 2020 so it’s looking like his base came out to vote but Democrats didn’t.
Republicans fall in line.
Democrats fall in love.
We need better candidates.
Republicans fall in line.
Democrats fall in love.
We need better candidates.
Democrats seem to think they can run shitty candidates and lecture people into falling in line.
Wouldn’t it be great if Pete ran 2028?
If he was running in 2028, he would have declared victory in the Iowa caucus by now.
True, say what you want about Trump but he perfectly captures the hearts and minds of the people voting for him. It’s all passion and gut instinct, the Dems get too cerebral.
-
Next time there should be a populist movement to write in a progressive candidate. Why couldn’t a populist candidate overrun the DNC like Trump did with the RNC?
Because Trump does represent a lot of the policies that Republican party support. Christian nationalism, low taxes for the rich, white supremacy.
It was apparent when the Alaskan governor ran for VP. (I forgot her name.) It consolidated behind Trump because he was a buffoon who could be manipulated to get their main aims to be fulfilled.
None in the DNC would want anyone other than a establishment candidate to be theirs. This was true when Hillary was nominated, when Biden was nominated and also when Harris was nominated.
Biden would have lost too if not for the previous 4 years of Trump. With Harris promising to continue putting finger in her ears and walking the same path which might have given respite if people could have let it continue 4-8 years. But who knows if they would have lived to see those days.
My state didnt even have spot where I could write someone in.
It would be relatively easy to take over the DNC (and the state and local parties), but very few people outside the establishment know how politics within the party works
Because it’s hard for actually intelligent people to worship a moron.
Edit: actually you’re right… we could have had Bernie.
Whenever a populist candidate pops up, the dnc does everything it can to crush them.
Perhaps what is needed is a “progressive caucus pre-primary.” Have a party within a party. The progressives hold an unofficial primary in 2027 between anyone who wants to run under the banner. They hold debates, have some way of getting people to vote, etc. The progressive caucus holds debates and selects a single candidate to endorse. Then, going into the actual primary, the progressive voting base is entirely united around one candidate from the beginning. That candidate would also have a hell of a lot of momentum going into the primary as they would already have one wing of the party entirely behind them.
Shit that’s not a bad idea
It goes beyond just that. I think a Democratic presidential candidate could do well addressing elitist thinking in general. I think they could do quite well with a pledge not to appoint anyone to their cabinet or to a court that graduated from an Ivy League school. One of the reasons we keep seeing the same shitty approaches is that both parties recruit heavily from the same handful of schools. This they’re recruited from the same social circles. I would suggest that candidates just flat out state that they’ll be filling all their major spots with people who got their education at state schools.
So we’re discriminating against possibly qualified personnel because they graduated from an Ivy League school (like JD Vance).
But not against the billionaires and millionaires trump is appointing?
Yes. Because social context and group think matter. The Democratic Party is indeed stuck in a coastal elite mindset. When I say school, it’s not even specifically about the kind of instruction the schools teach. It’s more about the social networks that have developed around these elite institutions. It encouragesc group think and narrow minded approaches. It’s why every Dem policy proposal is the same collection of wonkish tax credits. It’s why nationalizing the banks wasn’t one the table during the 2008 recession. It’s why they don’t know how to reach regular people. They just don’t know how to think any differently. Hell, look up the figures on federal judge nominations by law school attendance. It’s insane how much narrow minded we allow our institutions to be simply by primarily recruiting from a handful of elite schools and their alumni networks.
So we should dismiss people like Lina Khan because you want to virtue signal to “moderates” and “leftist” that Dems aren’t elitist?
It’s breathtaking how badly you missed the point here.
They should stay in their current path and fade off into obscurity
Who do you think would occupy that power vacuum? Because, just like spreading open your butthole in outer space while in orbit, shit will blow out.
Doesnt matter, continuing to feed the monster only gets a larger monster. Let it die
Hahaha, good one. I’m sure that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
“Nothing will fundamentally change” + “there is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Two killer statements.
To be fair Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” is a lot better with context. “There’s not a thing that comes to mind” is fucking inexcusable though.
To be fair Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” is a lot better with context.
To be fair, it became clear over the course of 4 years that it was correct at face value.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
DNC:
The party must return to its progressive roots. A new economy is needed with new rules and new roles
As in slavery is a great way to bring culture to those black slaves?
You are a strong contender to clinch the gold medal if the Olympics had mental gymnastics.
They’re referring to the roots of the Democratic party, as the more conservative and slave supporting party. The Democratic party is old, and until relatively recently was the further right party in the US. Which also helps explain why the Republicans are red, traditionally a left color, and Dems are blue, traditionally a right color. While it’s not really relevant to modern politics, and bringing it up like they just did is more of a historical bit of trivia, it’s not really mental gymnastics, it’s more of an “akshually” moment. The Democratic party does not have progressive roots, its roots are deeply, deeply conservative and right wing, and should be acknowledged.
People going around claiming the Democrats are neoliberal immediately after they leaned super hard into unions is some serious gaslighting horseapples.
they leaned super hard into unions
Biden supported unions before and after the railway workers strike, but Biden still felt the need to kill the strike. Supporting unions enough so that they get incrementally better deals is pro-union, but it does not a progressive make. We need radical systemic change to our institutions and Biden is ideologically incapable of delivering on that for the economy, the Ukraine War, Israel’s genocide, climate change, or immigration to name a few.
You never paid attention to the follow up on this one did you?
the reason the strike was killed was because it was “thousands of working people vs millions of working people”. The Democrats voted to insert the contested item (sick leave) and the republicans blocked that vote (Which had to be separate because stupid legislative rules).
However the Biden administration kept fighting in the background for the unions to get their sick leave, and eventually won. The unions even posted articles celebrating Biden getting them their sick leave.
that situation was a complex one and a reminder to not view the world in black and white.
that situation was a complex one and a reminder to not view the world in black and white.
https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
There is little evidence that the current administration has any interest in dealing with this crisis. Our hope is that a Biden administration would be historically bold. But make no mistake that both our political and economic systems will collapse absent solutions that scale to the enormous size of the problem. The central goal of our nation’s economic policy must be nothing less than the doubling of median income. We must dramatically narrow inequality between distributions while eliminating racial and gender inequalities within them. This is the standard to which we should hold leaders from both parties. To advocate for anything less would be cowardly or dishonest or both.
The 1% have extracted 50 trillion dollars from the bottom 90%. It’s time we side with labor in no uncertain terms.
the reason the strike was killed was because it was “thousands of working people vs millions of working people”.
The second reason Phillips-Fein finds the labor fight compelling is because of the way Biden framed it, as a choice between the interests of railway workers and the economy as a whole. But he didn’t have to do that. “The president could also embrace a sensibility that more explicitly identifies the interests of the country as a whole with those of the workers and their unions, rather than seeing them in opposition,” she said.
Biden is a pro-union neoliberal. We need pro-union progressives and socialists with a populist narrative to campaign on.
Neoliberals are anti-union. there is no such things a a pro-union neoliberal. All you’re doing is showing that you have no idea what you’re talking about, and making the rest of us leftists look like idiots by your company.
as for your stupid vice link, i see you and raise you the actual unions involved: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
screw your kiddie-pool-depth faux-leftism.
Neoliberals are anti-union.
Neoliberals are institutionalists. Unions are institutions. So no one should be surprised when a neoliberal like Joe Biden incrementally improves things for unions and their members.
i see you and raise you the actual unions involved
My argument is not that Biden did nothing, but that he could and should have done more. The president should leverage the full power of the executive branch to benefit workers. There is no need to capitulate to the owner class and break strikes. Incremental changes will not correct the fifty trillion dollar transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%.
screw your kiddie-pool-depth faux-leftism.
The incremental changes your argument is unsuccessfully attempting to justify are neoliberal policies. The fact neoliberal policies benefit unions does not change the fact that they are incremental changes. Your argument is not a leftist argument, but a neoliberal argument pretending to be a leftist argument. Your argument relies on name-calling and ad hominem attacks in an attempt to distract from this deception.
Everyone is in agreement: the takeaway for Democrats this election is to adopt my specific political views and eliminate any positions that I personally dislike.
I mean, I think were more arguing there’s clearly not a huge difference between the two parties and we need farther left representation instead of chasing centrist votes. I thought that was pretty clear.
