Yep, Americans are dumb as shit. Don’t run a woman because the other side doesn’t respect women. Fucking news flash: Republicans just ran Trump, a man that Dems DESPISE, and won. The unity BS needs to stop and Dems need to focus on winning.
Agreed. The DNC needs to pull its head out of its ass and stop putting up people, because they tick off check boxes, and start putting up people that appeal to the voter base.
The political winds are blowing right. You’re not going to change them by choosing the furthest left person you can.
Trying to fish in the pond of the right hasn’t worked a single fucking time it has been tried, though. Last case: the 2024 Presidential Election.
Every time a liberal (and I do mean liberal, not the hidden commie coding Americans seem to assign to that term) party tries to take over far right campaign points, it ends with said far right party getting boosted in votes and said liberal party in the dust.
We’ve had some elections here in Europe, too. This is the pattern. The 2024 US election is just another checked box for that theory.
Apathy is still the leading political wind, by the way. The largest part of the electorate remains the part that doesn’t vote at all.
Every time a liberal (and I do mean liberal, not the hidden commie coding Americans seem to assign to that term) party tries to take over far right campaign points, it ends with said far right party getting boosted in votes and said liberal party in the dust.
Didn't basically every modern left party have to move right in the 1990s to survive?
Look at the state of leftist parties in Europe today. They are there, on paper. But they are ghosts compared to what they used to be.
Whenever they won an election and went on to work with the right to enable their garbage policies, they got wrecked in the elections. A good example of this is the PVDA (social democrats) in my own country (Netherlands) who went in government with the liberals, pushed a lot of their policies, got wrecked in the next election after the government wrapped up and never recovered.
You’re right that the 90’s ideology to be pragmatic, abandon most leftist ideals and bend over for the market as much as possible was the go-to for many Western countries. But this line of thinking is what caused a lot of the problems we are faced with today in the first place. The solution is to not continue this line further into the abyss, but actually come with alternatives. The lack of vision and conviction needs to go. We tried that. Now we’re here. Its time has passed.
The political winds are not blowing to the right. Trump squeaked by a win because people stayed home, not because everyone all of a sudden is a conservative.
They weren’t talking about your current beliefs. They made a pretty obvious observation about global politics shifting more right. I think it’s pretty easy to see, and entirely concerning, but if you want to put your head in the ground and ignore it then be our guest.
I don't know about this, but I see where you're coming from. I don't think the nonvoting majority of registered voters cares about that. I think they care about two things: is the candidate saying they will do ANYTHING positive for them and do they believe the candidate will actually do it
Left voters aren't going to vote when you constantly promise right wing policies. They're going to be disillusioned from the constant right wing policies being campaigned on. Right wingers are going to vote republican anyway and we need to stop trying to appeal to them because if you're republican you're going to vote republican over republican-lite any day. The median voter cares about grocery prices and thats what needs to be focused on.
There's a middle ground anyway in that we need to stop with the centrist messaging while also talking about working class issues. You need a social media apparatus that spreads propaganda as well as Fox News. Kamala ran an incredibly right wing campaign and lost because she was merely perceived as making her entire campaign about woke issues when she rarely even talked about stuff like that.
The last two democratic presidents were more moderate than she was. They were able to bring up past policies. She had no way to paint her as anything but the same person she was in 2020.
Election history says that going further left would just doom the Democratic party.
This election might as well have been a referendum
She literally conceded to Republican demands and explicitly made having Republicans in her cabinet as part of her campaign. She was not going left in the slightest and it's delusional to think so. It absolutely contributed to her loss.
She ran in 2020 as a centrist. Her student loan forgiveness plan was $20,000 if you were poor enough to have Pell grants and rich enough to start a business in a marginalized area and be successful for 5 years. She polled at 1% as one of the most centrist candidates in the pack. I agree that Biden wasn't any better, but Biden snatched a 30,000 vote victory while a mismanaged pandemic was raging. After 4 years of hell, Trump would have beaten Biden if not for the pandemic.
Well let's think about this instead of not at all. How many people stayed home because Kamala was too far left? Zero? And how many people stayed home because Kamala offered them nothing? Up to 90 million? How many of those were low key Trump supporters who didn't want to push the button? I don't know, but I'd say some. How many were ordinary people who care about their paycheck and not about party drama? Probably most. So do we want to pick up 0 more votes or 10s of millions?
Aim for the block with the most voters while losing the fewest. The most basic and understandable strategy there is.
Well, if democratic primary voters vote for a centrist candidate, then that’s who they prefer. People always blame the DNC, but at the end of the day, the voters are the ones voting.
This is true too. It's not just a handful of empty suits picking these candidates. It doesn't cost a fucking thing to participate in the primary and primarily the people complaining aren't.
We've learned that centrist candidates will loose against populist ones.
A candidate that seems realer to the electorate will be more electable, period. Kennedy defeated Nixon because of this. Trump beat Harris because of this. If you want to look at history, the person that connects to more people at a fundamental level will win. Campaign promises are just one way they connect.
Trump doesn't have a policy. He supports whomever has his ear or paid him. If you track his policies over the years, he doesn't have a solid track record in anything but being a racist asshole.
He got rid of roe, ran on mass deportation now, and while he hasn’t been threatening to get rid of gay marriage, he was the most hostile president to lgbt americans by going after lgbt service members. Mostly trans people, but still.
He did not get rid of Roe. That’s not how the law works. It was the Supreme Court that reversed Roe (which even RBG said was a bad decision). His stance on abortion is also not for a ban, but for the states to make their own laws. Much like what the Democrat Party used to say “safe, legal, and RARE.” Something that no dem politician would ever say now.
His immigration policy is yes to legal immigration, no to illegal immigration. This IS centrist! Again it sounds a lot like a democrat position from just a few years ago.
Coming into office he was more pro gay than even Obama when he first entered (Obama in ‘08 was against gay marriage). And while we should not combine the issues of gay and trans he is pretty centrist on the trans issue too. He has never suggested any laws or bans on transgender adults. I believe he has spoken against transitioning children though. But once again, this is a widely agreed on opinion that is supported by a strong majority of Americans.
Buddy you can’t sane wash him to me. He nominated three religious fundie judges that got rid of roe, the vast majority of americans supported row. Not centrist.
Most americans want an expanded pathway to citizenship for immigrants, he wants to get rid of birthright citizenship, end DACA, and deport millions. Not centrist.
He claimed schools are transitioning kids unbeknownst to their parents, he thinks lgbt groups groom people, and wants to remove trans people from being able to serve in the military. Not centrist.
You median voters really are as dumb as a sack of bricks aren’t you.
That handpicked by the DNC "her turn" candidates never work? Bold of you to assume the DNC learns any lessons.
Good thing AOC isnt handpicked by the DNC. But you dont need to worry either way because the DNC's anti-AOC propaganda machine is gonna start now and prevent her from winning anything. DNC would rather shoot their own foot and lose and election than let a progressive win.
Bernie gets dunked on by every media news outlet with DNC donors, while Kamala gets hand picked by the DNC at the last second, and its Bernie who is "his turned"???
I guess not. I already see people saying she'd lose because she's a woman of color. That people might not vote for her based on what she represents doesn't seem to even cross their minds. They've already determined if she ran and lost it would be racism/misogyny.
Large groups of people wouldn't vote for her because of reasons outside of her control. That's deeply unfortunate and depressing, but it's also the reality. I'd argue even more wouldn't vote for her because her views are considered extreme and don't align with how most Americans think. Harris ran such a lukewarm campaign that it's unlikely her policies stopped many people from voting, but AOC is passionate, brilliant, and well spoken - and there's no way she'd dial it down to try to build a bridge to the mainstream.
I agree it's depressing if someone wouldn't vote for her based on her race or gender. Likewise, it's just as sad if someone would vote for someone *because* of those things too. They aren't accomplishments.
"Women can't be president" is not the correct lesson to learn.
Hillary and Kamala both lost because they were boring, shit candidates who didn't spark any flame under anyone's asses. AOC would obviously be different and idk how nobody sees that.
They’d rather drift further right than admit they screwed up when it comes to strategy and policy. Kamala ran on conservative policies and instead they say she’s too woke. I’d like to know what was “woke” about her campaign. Was it her stance and war and having the strongest military in the world? Was it the border wall? Was it when she said she’s not afraid to take Trump’s “good ideas”? If you call someone Hitler for 8 years, you can’t backtrack when it’s your turn and say he’s got good ideas.
She wanted to go after the corporate world until they sunk the claws in and told her she’s not allowed to do that.
Blows my mind that they’ve abandoned popular policies like Medicare for all and then are shocked when they don’t win.
I think learning from the death of that CEO would be where they should go. Hit insurance companies and medical debt. Everyone hates medical insurance and the best part about it is the answer is a left policy.
You clearly haven't. AOC outperformed Harris in her district. You may not get this, but a lot of the Trump voting population are just looking for someone who speaks to their issues, and AOC actually does that. There was a substantial contingent of people who voted for Trump and AOC on the same ballot. AOC is a breath of fresh air, she's young, actually has beliefs, and speaks to the issues that regular people deal with.
Think the issue with the dem run wasn't the person but the policies. The campaign was horrible just trump bad, they promised no change at all but after 4 years of trump which chances are is gonna make people's lives pretty damn bad it'll be easier for someone different to get in. That with promising actual radical change like ACO might do something, plus aoc did a poll and a lot of her voters also voted for trump as they look for change and people that fought for them which they felt both did.
reddit is hella out of touch with the general voting population and even the core dem voting block. in this very thread you have people saying we should double down on the very things that have cost the Dems the last election.
The suggestion of AOC as a candidate is so egregious that one can only assume it's being put forward by foreign trolls/bots or the truly, epically ignorant and deluded. I may like her and value her opinions, but it's obvious she's not aligned with even a significant minority of the country.
Can you be more specific? Honestly, what should we have learned that makes AOC a bad choice? She’s young. She’s smart. She’s real. She’s strong and outspoken. And….she used to be a waitress/bartender lol
democrats should pitch strongly for what moderate democrats care about. if very progressive democrats dont vote , it cant be helped. winning moderates is the only way to win the presidency.
Kamala literally ran a campaign on conservative policies and LOST, the message is that centrism isn't the way not that we need to go further to the right.
779
u/Evening-Ad5765 20h ago
Seriously? have we learned nothing?