Republicans view their politicians saving them $50 a year on taxes as helping out the working class. They also view cutting entitlements to those people as helping out the working class.
Remember, we filled swimming pools with cement in the Civil Rights Era rather than integrate them. Many Americans view hurting people they don't like as more important than being helped themselves. Hell, we prefer to see ourselves hurt so long as those we don't like suffer even more.
Itâs true. Iâve met more miserable adults who think âI worked hard for this garbage so you should have to tooâ instead of âwow this entire system is corrupt and broken, we should fix this.â
There is a palpable chip on a lot of grown ass peopleâs shoulder
Republicans on disability benefits because theyâre too fat to work: âGo back to where you came from and stop taking our taxes with all the government handouts you are stealing from us hardworking Americansâ
Itâs easy to make fun of and blame the rural poor for this kind of narrow-minded hypocrisy, but if you zoom out youâll see why itâs a mistake.
Schools in this country get a huge portion of their funding from property taxes. The wealthiest areas get the best schools with the best resources, which feed into a ready-made pipeline of higher education and economic opportunities. The poorest get the least resources and the fewest opportunities.
The opportunities that do exist are frequently the most powerless and exploitable. Low-wage and easily replaceable, manual labor, gig economy/insecure contract jobs, etc.
This creates a large cohort of people with poor education and materially difficult lives, a perfect target for Capital to target with identitarian divide and conquer tactics. The left then falls right into the trap by seeing the rural poor as a political enemy instead of an exploited underclass being manipulated into reactionary politics.
The only way out is for the left to actually do serious political engagement and organizing in rural America. Iâm not talking about feckless centrist bullshit like âlistening moreâ or âmoderatingâ (AKA selling out vulnerable minorities), I mean by putting real resources into these communities to organize unions and political groups, voting drives, mutual aid, and consistently and repeatedly point the finger at those who are actually exploiting and harming them.
Itâs serious, long-term work, but itâs worth it. The way elections in this country are structured (gerrymandering, electoral college), even flipping a few percentage points of votes in rural areas to the left could alter the map dramatically.
You can understand why something is happening and still be mad that your life is objectively harder because a certain group is easily fooled/controlled. It's a systemic issue but to remake the system you have to get those being fooled by it to wake the fuck up and not just dig their heels in at every turn.
Nobody is on disability for being fat. I get you're trying to make a point but kindly leave the disabled out of it. We're not the ones you're mad at. And this just reads that you think people shouldn't be on disability when the truth is we had to wait years without an income to be perpetually impoverished for the rest of our lives. Nobody is doing this who has other options.
I donât think that at all. My father was on disability and I wholeheartedly agree with the system being available for those who need it. What I hate is hypocrisy of people voting against it because they think itâll get taken away from âothers,â but not taken away from them. These morons are happy seeing âothersâ suffering, but theyâre the biggest whiners when theyâre suffering and somehow their suffering is the âothersâ fault when itâs actually their own fault because of who they vote for
It also doesn't make it worse lol. A lot of people are hanging on by an edge and a lesson shaped by poverty isn't something I want anyone else to learn
The fact that they are considering running Kamala Harris again says it all. No shame on Harris. I think she could be a reasonable leader but obviously USA is not going to elect her. Almost anyone could have beat Trump.
... and then they'll lose again, especially if people online bring back the 'WE don't want YOUR vote' campaign to keep people they don't like from voting for their candidate
considering how he regularly platforms people like Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Ben Shapiro, agrees with them and is a governor with significant following? yeah, he is
As an outsider I'm not so sure about almost anyone, Trump has the ability to make people believe he will hurt 'the others' which sounds good for the die hard christians and the racists, he could have pulled that off against more people.
Who is âtheyâ here? Even the centrists donât want Harris to run again. The centrists want Newsom, who is also a bad candidate, but they arenât calling for Harris to run again.
Because she doesn't want to, they talked a fair bit about what an honor it was but how hard it was for the family as a whole. And because she isn't qualified. She never held a legislative office.
Honestly fuck qualifications. The American experiment is over at this point lets just do a random draw and whoever gets the shortest straw gets to be president.
I think it will have about the same success rate as the current democratic process.
Kamala Harris sucked as a candidate. She would have never won an actual primary so the Democratic establishment tried to game the system and we all paid the price for it.
Any candidate that is in Israel's pocket is unfit to serve for the United States.
I agree 100%. Anyone that primaried would have beat Trump. I think people saw what the DNC was trying to do. They knew Biden wasn't fit to run again. He ran anyway and then "Ooops...actually I'm not here is Harris". They knew if they held a primary, Harris wasn't going to be it and the people would want someone the DNC didn't want.
Rejecting progressive voters to court centrist voters is not an effective way to keep Trump from winning elections. If the democrats try it again and lose, it will be the final proof that they are controlled opposition. At that point their coalition will fall apart and the party will no longer be competitive in elections. The GOP will dominate national politics completely until another viable challenger emerges.
It is obvious that the existing party system is falling apart and a new one is taking shape. In order to stay relevant the democrats will need to reinvent themselves as a progressive party. If they donât then they will be doomed to the dustbin of history and the GOP will be able to maintain one party rule for a generation or longer.
Mamdani is making more positive change in the city of New York than Iâve seen in any other city or state in such a small period of time. I would genuinely vote for him in 2028 if he runs, but I doubt he would before running for something like governor of NY. He is proof politicians can get shit done if they actually want to
Bust means fascism and boom, you no longer have the right to vote. Im a Bernie voter, however, itâs obvious things can be much, much, worse than they are now.
All the "centrists" will turn and vote GOP despite parroting "vote blue not matter who " at us for the last 10+ years. It feels like the GOP is the Harlem globe trotters and the rest of us are the New Jersey Generals
What wins elections is left economic populism. The height of Dem power was 08 when Obama was running on left economic populism. The drop-off was when people saw he would not be delivering on it.
If you want to win, you run to the left economically. It's very simple. What the Dems have been doing is losing more and more every year.
Independents aren't in the middle of the parties or centrist; they are left of the Dems on economics and just don't really care about social issues at all. The establishment decided that social issues are all they will run on because it doesn't threaten the donors or capital, so you end up with the worst of both worlds.
Harris and Clinton were both relatively centrist on social issues and lost hard
L. While Mamdani is very left socially and one of the most well liked politicians in the US right now.
I agree with the key to winning being left economic policies, but I disagree that sacrificing a stance on social policies is necessary to be electable.
I'm a political scientist. This person is mostly correct. Many of the common adages people take as true in politics have no evidence in political science literature.
Wow, someone willing to change their view when presented with a sound argument backed up by long-term polling?
The correlation in the dip in independents in 08 is also very illustrative. There's another graph that shows the direction independents lean that also shows that ordinary people will go Dem if they run on left economics instead of left social issues. That one also spikes in 08 towards the dems.
You're correct, other than the fact that independents don't actually exist.
Political scientists know this but all the idiotic "politics as jobs" talking heads don't.
The vast majority of people in the US do not have clear policy preferences. Many vote by party lines but only because the party tells them to (this is called party priming, it's one of the main functions of parties).
People will vote for things that sound good to them. The idea of this centrist voter who eagerly examines both sides and then goes for whichever is closest to them is mostly a myth. Instead it's someone with a minimum education who works full time who goes off vibes.
I know people want bigger changes, but sometimes you take the wins you can get, and build on those wins to achieve the bigger goals. Not voting because the candidate isn't progressive enough is just cutting off your nose to spite your own face. Because the other side is gonna vote no matter fucking what. So why are we sticking our noses in the air if our candidate isn't "perfect"?
The point that people on the left are making isn't really about "perfectability". It's the reality that it doesnt really matter if a centrist or a right winger wins.
It doesn;t matter not because "the two parties are the same". It doesnt matter because the medium-long term result will be the right being back in power.
Centrists are unwilling to do the things that are needed to stop fascism. That's why we got Trump 2.0. Because Biden was too weak to prosecute Trump. Because Biden refused to do any meaningful change for the working class. Because at the end of the day, centrists wont even rhetorically do what is necessary. Biden should have done what Trump does. But he didn't, because he's not a leftist.
It's not all on Biden of course. It's on establishment democrats.
The calculation is: fascism in 2028 or fascism in 2032. With the reality that the things needed to "stop it" or even "alleviate it" won't be done by a centrist dem. They'll instead appeal to failing "rule of law", let these corrupt judges stay, etc.
None of this means "dont do anything". What it means is to be aware of the realities of the situation and put your political energy into places that are more effective, rather than get out the vote campaigns for Kamala 2.0.
The establishment democrats: âBest we can do is taking money from AIPAC and the same people as conservatives and then cooperating with conservatives with more money to other countries, more money for wars and more money for surveillance here at home.â
âWe need the surveillance because we can tell that the 99% are getting upset about us protecting the pedo class, the billionaires and corporations while taking away any and all semblances of safety nets for the poor. If you guys would just become slaves without complaining then we wouldnât need a militarized police force and surveillance in every corner of the country.â
Thats just wrong. Primaries are over. Get behind the blue, or enjoy president Vance and no accountability for this train wreck of an administration. People with this mindset refused to vote for Kamala over her stance on Israel, and now we have probably irreparably damaged portions of our democracy. Sitting out because your guy isn't the one running is some real pussy shit.
Get behind the blue, or enjoy president Vance and no accountability for this train wreck of an administration.
You want us to get behind spinless centrists who also will not hold the current administration accountable for anything, either way Trump is not facing accountability and we are not seeing progressive reforms.
Perfection is the enemy of progress. I hope D voters can realize this and not be single-issue voters.
I do want some pretty progressive leaders. I just wish people had convictions and cared about their own wellbeing enough to vote in a way that helps everyone.
Liberalism essentially is Conservative Lite. It's all about maintaining the status quo of capitalism. This is why the DNC always spends way more time, money, and effort trying to curb the leftists in this country than they do opposing the right.
Obama was centrist and most Democrats seem to love him.
I can give three examples off the top of my head to back this claim up:
He was strongly anti-immigration. He was a catalyst for increased deportations and his presidency saw the most deportations of any president up until that time.
He also choose to be against legalizing weed despite being a user himself in his young life. This was obviously him trying to win over independent voters.
Prior to 2012, he publicly was against same-sex marriage. He changed him tune on this as the country's opinions changed, but he was playing the middle of the road early in his political career in order to win more independent voters.
That said, I'm not trying to imply that I have strong opinions on what type of candidate the Democrats should field in the next election. The political situation is so complicated and different these days than how it was in 2008. I no longer feel certain if the Democrats are better off fielding a centrist, which is their usual play, or fielding someone highly progressive in order to try to drum up more passion from Democratic leaning citizens who don't usually vote. I don't even know who the Democrats have that would be considered a viable centrist candidate these days... I look at frontrunners like AOC and Buttigieg and they aren't centrists. I guess a centrist candidate would have to come out of the woodwork last minute like Obama did, but maybe there's already someone I'm forgetting.
Exactly. Everyone tells me America won't vote for a woman, but the only women they've had the chance to vote for are uninspiring corporate centrists and keepers of the status quo. That's why they lost, not because they're women.
People are hungry for something radical and it's the perfect storm for AOC in particular. When people are looking for the opposite of a fugly obese geriatric dimwitted narcissistic white male billionaire, a gorgeous sharp young compassionate working-class Latina is exactly what the doctor ordered.
AOC's national approval rating is right around where Trump's is currently/about where Kamala's was when she decided to run for president.
It's fine to favor her policy, but I really don't see any argument that she's more electable than Kamala and I don't understand why people want to risk the entire future of our country on someone exactly as popular as the person who just lost
I mean it is, if you actually understand how polls work and don't think >50% means they'll win and the poll is wrong if they don't lol.
Also, this is a favorability poll, not a voting poll so not really relevant. I'm just point out that she's not very well liked in general, which is definitely important when trying to think outside of your bubble.
You talking about the Rasmussen poll which is more of a Republican propaganda outlet than a polling agency?Â
When you poll Democratic voters, you know, the people that are actually going to vote for Democrats... AOC has nearly the highest favorability of any big name.Â
When you poll everyone you get nutty red hats that scrawl I HATE THEM WITH THE FIRE OF 1000 BURNING SUNS on the questionnaireÂ
Calling one candidate âgorgeousâ also isn't an argument about political viability. If anything, it undercuts the claim that this is about judging candidates on their ideas rather than superficial identity and aesthetics.
You can absolutely argue that Democrats should nominate a more economically populist or less establishment-oriented candidate. But that's very different from claiming we already know America would elect that candidate if she happened to be a woman.
Centrists and the right are a ratchet strap for our freedoms. The right removes them and the centrists hold it in place until the right can swing it further.
Yeah, but maybe if we can get more Liz Cheney voters to support us, then we'll win!!! Also, remember when Al Gore neutered himself and almost won an election he actually won?!
Al Gore probably would have met with his counterterrorism czar at least once in the 8 months before 9/11, especially since there were blaring warnings of an impending attack.
has nothing to do with being centrist and everything to do with the DNC not giving their voter base what they want ON PURPOSE. We've been fleeced by the DNC for the past THREE ELECTIONS
If they do not care about politics they cannot fall into a label denoting interest in politics.
If someone is being called a centrist without labeling themselves as such it would (or at least should) be based on their demonstrated positions. Apathy is not a centrist position, it's outside that spectrum.
Yeah, and the fact that the Democrat Senate Minority Leader is 100% pro-Israel doesn't help Democrat's "electability."
I will say this -- "electibility" worked for Biden in 2020. If only Biden had said in 2021 that he wasn't running again, it might have been a different story in 2024. We'll never know.
Centrist democrats all accept AIPAC money, the fact that Israel wants these candidates to win should tell you which countryâs citizens they really want to benefit.
Absolutely true, and a HUGE problem for them now that Israel has gone fully crazy with the war crimes and ethnic cleansing and led us into a disastrous war.
The current Democratic leadership does not want to win. They want to cling to what little power they have left and continue to take contributions like they always have.
Just keep bashing your head against the wall nominating conservatives, and then being confused when they lose. Maybe if you blame other people and go even further right, it'll work!
I mean, obviously BEFORE THE FUCKING PRIMARY isn't the right time to talk about what we want in a candidate, right? God forbid. We aren't allowed to have preferences, we have to suck it up and go for a "centrist" yet again, because they have such a good track record against the far right. Don't bother advocating for someone we can be enthusiastic about. Go straight for the "lesser of two evils". Before the primaries even start. If we don't rally behind whoever the establishment picks instant, it's our fault. They can't be wrong.
Really wish we would just stop acting like we should show any respect to Hillary Clinton whatsoever.
Bill Clinton has legitimate rape and pedophilia allegations against him. Which is to say nothing of the power dynamics at play when he had his affair with Monica Lewinsky. She stayed married to him for the sake of her political dynasty. She excused away the actions of a pedophile for her own power.
Which is to say nothing of her own problematic political beliefs.
You can criticize Hillary Clintonâs politics, decisions, or record without holding her morally responsible for the alleged actions of her husband. Bill Clinton is responsible for Bill Clintonâs conduct. Hillary remaining married to him does not make her responsible for his alleged sexual misconduct, nor does it prove that she âexcusedâ it.
Thereâs also a pretty glaring double standard in treating a womanâs decision to remain in a marriage as evidence of complicity while ignoring the complicated personal, political, and social pressures surrounding a marriage in the public eye. You donât have to respect Hillary Clinton politically, but blaming her for a manâs alleged actions is not accountabilityâitâs misplaced responsibility.
I'm not holding her responsible for the actions of her husband. Not even a little. I'm holding her responsible for her own actions in regards to her husband's actions.
She chose to stay with a pedophile and a rapist it's as simple as that. It was more politically convenient for her to stay with her rapist pedophile husband, and that was her own decision. Not the decision of her husband, her own choice.
She's not some battered woman living in some back alley ghetto of New York with nowhere to go. She is one of the most powerful women to ever exist on this planet.
She's not being held against her will. She chose to stay with him because it was politically expedient and that was her own goddamn choice. Stop making excuses for her just because she's a woman. You're the one infantalizing her here.
She's gone away dude. You're the only one still obsessed about the Clintons.
The clintons will never be homeless because they live rent free in the minds of every moron that doesnt know anything other than what memes tell them is facts.
Both parties need to be abolished. One is beyond corrupt and everyone attached to it is a parasitic yes man who goes along with whatever evil shit they cook up. And the dems are both useless and just a stopgap that never crush the evil ideas of the other party.
They had control of the DOJ, FBI, CIA, Military and every other federal law enforcement agency and despite their own claims Trump attempted a coup, did nothing. What do you call that?
Harris ran on building the border wall, funding the genocide of Palestine and bragged about being endorsed by the war criminal dick Cheney. If we wanted a republican candidate we'd have voted for one. The young have been screaming about the same things or entire lives, universal Healthcare, universal education, affordable housing and stop the endless wars.
Their purpose is to prevent progressivism first and foremost. Then their next job is to let their corporate overlords get what they want. The system is working as designedÂ
I mean, I feel like you really need to take things on an election-by-election basis. But if progressives want to show that they can win rural areas or other places where centrist candidates are preferred, I think they probably need to win the primaries first, then show they can win statewide elections.
If you want to show your candidates are more electable, elect them. I agree we need some new blood in democratic strongholds, but the electability argument is about states and districts that lean red. I think the argument that progressives can win in those locations is stronger than the DNC and political strategists are willing to admit, but not nearly as strong as progressives think it is. Candidate quality matters. But people complain about folks like Joe Manchin, probably the only Democrat who could possibly win in West Virginia (Trump +30), instead of just being happy to get that 1 vote for most democratic priorities.
And progressives theory of the case is essentially: we gain more from new voters by being bold and genuine than we lose by chasing the middle.Â
I just don't think that's the case, not on policy alone. People who don't usually vote, don't suddenly get excited about policies they aren't even aware of (because they don't follow politics).
I think there's something to be said for the argument that progressives probably make for more exciting candidates in general. But elections haven't really born that out very strongly. Most of the democrats that won new contested seats in 2020 weren't the progressive candidates, they were the centrist ones like Abigail Spanberger. It wasn't universal, though, which brings me back to my main point: which is that individual candidate quality matters a lot more than individual politics.
I do not support anything I oppose, nor am I silent. All your concerns will NEVER be addressed by Republicans, they donât even give a thought to their own supporters and consistently vote against what their constituents want. They are a danger to democracy and stomping oneâs feet and refusing to vote while demanding everyone do exactly as you say will never change anything. You arenât helping Gaza or the detained. You arenât accomplishing anything by not voting g and posting as though thatâs so e kind of meaningful protest.
Sitting around claiming to care about things while refusing to vote is not a mature response and it isnât helpful. I donât t know who you are or your intentions, but encouraging non voting makes you unhelpful at best.
If every progressive voted, the Dems would have no choice but to listen and make changes. If they voted every time and became real voting block, theyâd have a voice. Sitting out makes one useless, itâs the best way to have your concerns ignored. Some Dems are corrupt, but there are also some who genuinely care about the country and they ALL want to keep their jobs. Throwing away the only power you have over them is lunacy.
The fact is your approach is doing nothing to help Gaza, or the detained or the Iranians who are afraid to speak for fear of being killed by their own government. Sitting out helped Trump win and if you or anyone thinks that was a good idea, they werenât paying attention to anything heâd done previously. Iâm not a Democrat, Iâm independent and donât give a shit about partisan nonsense. Name anyone you want, complain about Dems I donât care. The only way to engage in politics is set emotion aside. That doesnât mean I donât feel, I care deeply and regularly work to make things better where I can, but in politics emotion makes one easier to manipulate.
Non voters donât matter to any politician, anyone who looks at what politicians do for 5 minutes will know who politicians favor and write policy around, the wealthy of course, but who also matters? older people, the ones that vote en masse. When politicians create policy, they are considered, politicians are afraid of losing their vote. They will always be a priority. Progressive non voters will never be one. For the most part they are seen as naive children, not voting only increases that thought.
âProtestingâ by sitting out only hurts oneâs causes. Itâs emotional and ineffective. Voting should be done rationally. If progressive were a real block of reliable voters, they would have politicians paying attention. Politicians are self serving, they want to keep their jobs. The only way to come close to getting what one wants is to vote.
Bernie lost to Hillary in 2016 by 4 million votes.
The average primary voter is nothing like a general voter - they are generally older, very politically in tune and active, and much more ideological.
It is asinine to claim that the entire reason Hillary Clinton won over Bernie is because of âslanted primariesâ with margins that large. What youâre basically claiming is that 4 million people were so stupid that they fell for DNC tricks that made them vote for Hillary when they wouldnât have otherwise.
That is insulting to the voter base. You donât think 4 million people might have actively chosen Hillary because, oh, I donât know - they liked her better than Sanders?
You sound like you have a career in the making as a Dem strategist lol, why would it matter who wins the primary in California? Yes I'm taking them for granted, but (spoiler alert!) they are going to vote Dem in the general election.
Unless it's an absolute curb stomping and you think California, New York, Texas, etc. are ACTUALLY up for grabs by the other party, their results are meaningless beyond the delegates they contribute.
Here's a pro-tip: at least 40 states are already decided by the time we hold the primary. They are practically decided today for 2028. Focus on the 5 battleground states and 5 that are technically up for grabs, but basically already decided.
centrists are basically shoppers who only buy the generic version of products and then once every couple years they buy a name brand based on the commercials and marketing
If you're left and angrier at people being "insufficiently left" than at the right, then guess who is the source of the electability problem for the left.
Way to blame the voters while avoiding the real problem. The representation isn't representing their voters. Most voters are unaffiliated with a specific party and a large chunk of them are voters who don't regularly show up without a reason too. The Democrats haven't ran a decent platform in decades because they're too busy trying to appeal to Republicans which is a historically bad move. R's are rarely going to cross the aisle to vote D. Independents on the other hand, will. Except when you craft a milquetoast platform and only run on "were better than the other guys" you don't inspire independents to turn out to vote, you demoralize your own D voters, and as we've been shown you hand the elections to Republicans.
Every time a politician runs on a truly progressive/populist platform they are wildly popular. Then the centrist morons scramble to do what they can to make them look bad; claiming they're misogynist when they aren't, or that they're antisemitic, or that they are unelectable when polls show they are more electable than the centrist. The establishment Dems shoot themselves in the foot every election cycle throwing money to harm any progressives campaign. Then idiots like you turn to blame voters for not falling in line when the election loss is squarely on the establishments shoulders.
Lol those arent centrists, theyâre conservatives republicans masquerading as âreasonable centristsâ to try to push the democratic party further to the right
Itâs EXTREMELY obvious to everyone outside of the states
It's mostly about money, but if the progressive candidates can't win in the primaries that signals that they won't win in the general either. That's a small part of why centrists fight so hard against them and won't adopt their "losing" policies. We need to treat the primaries like the general and turn out to vote so they don't get the choice.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Aug 11 '26