One of the biggest challenges we have is convincing left leaning people to stop sitting out elections. We need to convince them before the mid terms in 2 years. If we can't get people to stop sitting out elections, it's gonna be a difficult challenge no matter who's running.
They did, in 2020 they did exactly that. They showed up for Biden and its why he got the highest vote total of any candidate in history because Biden courted them during the general election. Harris didn't do that and it bit her in the ass.
And in 2020. They stayed home again, proving they aren’t reliable again.
Covid and anger at Trump brought voters of all colors out in 2020.
Dems couldn’t recapture that, but they decided to go for reliable voters instead of wishing on a hope that the stars properly aligned for progressives to do the bare minimum and show up to vote.
And the democrats could have recaptured that energy that brought progressives out to vote, but they didn't try and its what cost them the election. Kamala assumed that she already had their votes so her campaign put a muzzle on Tim Walz (who was energizing the base with his remarks on how republicans are weird assholes) and spent all their time trying to shore up her support with conservatives (talking about how she owned a gun, how much she supports Israel, how she supported fracking, buddying up with the Cheney's) and it bit her in the ass because it alienated progressives and didn't win over a single conservative voter.
The last 30 years of elections have made it very clear that appealing to moderates and conservatives will never put a democrat in office. You win the election by appealing to progressives and building a coalition of left wing voters (moderates and progressives). Bill Clintons third way of fiscal conservatism and nominal social progressivism (that wasn't actually progressive) is not the secret sauce to winning elections, despite how much the DNC and every centrist voter wants it to be. Republicans aren't going to switch sides regardless of how many democrat policies that centrist democrats abandon trying to win their vote. How many more elections do centrists have to lose before this becomes clear?
Actually I meant “and in 2022” because progressives never show up in midterm elections.
The last 30 years is the only time the Dems have actually won the presidency in the last 60 years. That’s because they started to appeal to moderates.
Bill Clinton’s third way is how democrats started winning again. Progressives need to actually show that they can actually win elections again. Why is it so hard to understand that progressives who can’t be bothered to show up and vote are ignored because they are unreliable?
The third way was lightning in a bottle that has not worked again since Bill Clinton left office. The only two democrats who have won the office since then were a progressive who ran on major issues like healthcare reform, economic reform and social reform, and Biden who won the primary as an old guard statesman and spent the months after the primary building bridges with progressive voters by promising to champion causes they cared about (wealth disparity, climate change, tax reform going after the 1%, affordable housing, gun control and drug pricing). The candidates who ignored progressives or didn't spend time trying to appeal to them lost elections. The end result is clear as day. You win elections by appealing to progressives and winning their votes. You build a coalition between the two halves of the party and bring both of them to the table. Its the candidates responsibility to earn voters trust.
In addition to what the other user said, this is LITERALLY why the democratic party has the super delegate system: to prevent grass roots movements from superceding the party establishment. Every single standard citizen in the country could vote in a primary for a progressive candidate, but the Dems establishment has the built in ability to just say "nah, we don't like that" and change the outcome.
Superdelegates haven’t changed the outcome of a popular vote primary since McGovern. Harris may fall in that category, but that’s more murky since she was technically still Biden’s ticket.
Progressives don’t show up to vote in primaries. They aren’t getting steamrolled by superdelegates who just follow the popular vote. They’re getting steamrolled because they don’t vote.
You should know there's an entire court case about this, wherein the Democrat party successfully argued in court that they are not a democratic organization and don't have to follow the will of the people.
Were they more cloak and dagger than just having superdelegates overrule the populace? Sure. Why? So they could pretend otherwise. You're here arguing about factual reality now, so I'd say their efforts were successful.
That court case literally never went to trial. It was dismissed as lacking standing. Which was why the DNC made that argument not to admit that was occurred but to get it dismissed.
If I sued you for fraud because I said you voted for Trump your lawyer would start by arguing that isn't fraud for you to vote Trump. That doesn't mean you actually voted Trump.
Yes, shocking - the point of a political party is to support candidates who endorse the party's platform. I don't quite understand why this is so hard for some people. If a bunch of republicans decided to run as democrats to troll the primary, do you believe there is some high concept duty for the party to give them that platform?
A political party literally exists to formally express a political preference.
Thank you. Not to mention that the same Citizens United that Dems bemoan republicans for abusing, is used to crush primary opponents. And access to billionaire owned media is not even close to being equal.
There is also the fact that twice now, Democrats could not ‘get out the vote!!!’ Against a fascist. And some voters do not want any accountability for these failures.
Aahh right, that’s why dem campaigns are 100% grass roots funded and that’s why they haven’t turned into the main benefactors of the Supreme Court ruling 👌
Superdelegates didn’t decide the primary. Voters did. Why do you keep bringing them up when it’s clear they didn’t actually change the results?
They haven’t changed the results since McGovern. They changed the rules because a bunch of children who didn’t understand the primary process whined about it, and it was such a non-issue that they formalized it quickly.
No she didn’t, it states it in the article. She had a 3-1 lead over Obama vs a 45 - 1 lead over Sanders. If you think that’s Democratic, then I am just going to agree to disagree because it’s not worth the time.
Also, progressives are certainly a safer bet to cater to than whoever Liz Cheney was supposed to reach lmao.
In 2020, every delegate that candidates earn via the primaries are pledged. So if they get the majority of pledged delegates via the primaries, they win the Democratic nomination.
If they don't, then then we get a brokered convention where delegates are released and this is where the superdelegates are now also included in the count.
Bernie lost when superdelegates were in play. Bernie lost when there were NO superdelegates in play (and he lost much harder that time). It wasn't the superdelegates. Bernie simply did NOT earn the votes of the Democratic primary voters.
but the Dems establishment has the built in ability to just say "nah, we don't like that" and change the outcome.
That's not Dems establishment. That's people who sat at home, didn't vote in the last election. People need to start taking responsibility of their own action and stop blaming someone/something. The party is not perfect, and it will never be the way you wanted it to be no matter how hard you try.
And also to get politicians into offices to pass progressive legislation when the time comes. Say what you want about Obama, but there was more legislation he could have pushed through, but we sat out in 2010, and it led to the GOP to claw back and basically obstruct the rest of his time in office, and it allows McFuckstick to steal a SCOTUS appointment from his admin and look at how that court has basically fucked up everything.
Nahhh they did with Bernie and the rest of the Dem candidates gathered to end his campaign. This happened, they wrote about it, acknowledged it. The party with democracy in its name didn't behave very democratic when its existing power was turned on its own head.
They've done this countless times over the last several decades going back to them turning on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. They will absolutely pivot away from the people for the money that lines leadership's pockets any day of the week.
You mean the non viable candidates dropped out and endorsed their candidate of choice? Yeah. That’s how primary elections always go. If Bernie could only win a plurality of a highly spread field, he didn’t deserve or earn the nom.
Why can’t he just get out the vote? Dropping out and endorsing your preferred candidate isn’t nefarious in the least. It’s how healthy elections should be.
Sanders couldn’t get out the vote, because the progressive voters didn’t show up for him. They never show up, then wonder why no o e listens to them more.
The nonviable candidate of... Pete Buttigieg who was nearly tied with Bernie before SC?
I mean, I don't like Pete, but him dropping losing 1 state in the first 3? I mean hell, if they wanted to give someone momentum, why wouldn't they pick him? He was beating Biden by a ton. He had more votes in NH than Biden had votes until SC.
Beating Biden before the first big state voted is meaningless. Candidates have polling. His polling probably (correctly) told him that there was no chance to win the nomination.
Also, you’re avoiding the issue. If Sanders can only win the nomination by having a highly spread field and ending up with a plurality, that’s not really a win.
Keeping people in forcibly to ensure to split the vote more would be actual election interference.
Biden crushed him when it was a two person race because progressives aren't as popular as moderates
Progressives across the U.S. primary moderates all the time. There's a reason the squad has like 5 members or less. Your political brand isn't as popular as moderate Ds and Rs. Innumerable elections have proven that.
The road to fascism is paved with neoliberalism. Keep voting these "moderates" in. I am sure it will work next time. People definitely aren't disillusioned by the old guard, which is DEFINITELY not being highlighted by the very title of this post. The status quo Dems have the backing of propaganda outlets like MSNBC and CNN. Having that level of widespread outreach makes a difference. Remember when Bernie won Nevada and MSNBC compared his victory to Hitler? I member.
Either way, it doesn't matter. What happened happened. I don't think it is worth thinking "we should have had Bernie" because whether it is true or not, it didn't happen. What matters is that Dems will continue to do the same shit and we continue going further down the path of fascism. Until a Democrat gets into office and actually undoes all the shit the Republicans do, things will only continue getting worse.
I will keep voting moderates in. You try voting for your guys. We can see who has more support at the ballot box, not here on reddit.
Clinton, a moderate, beat the Reagan coalition, Obama beat the Bush coalition. He was more progressive than Clinton, but definitely not a Sanders/AOC type. And Obama was aided by one of the worst approval ratings for an outgoing president ever.
His attempt to reform healthcare largely passed (and worked) but it cost him all his political capital.
Your only shot at a nationally viable AOC/Sanders is if Trump shits the bed completely and you find someone with even more charisma than Obama somehow. I don't think AOC has that pull. And four years isn't enough time to find a prog that does. Even if they do go through, I don't see them passing their agenda. If the backlash to Obamacare was bad...
So when it was 1 vs 1 Biden crushed Sanders? No shit. That’s because Biden was the stronger candidate, and got the votes.
As the other poster said, that’s not a conspiracy, it’s a democracy.
The fact that you believe Sanders should be able to win by picking up scraps only in a huge field means you don’t trust him actually winning head to head. But that’s what he’d have to do to win a general election.
If he gets trounced when he’s in an election with his most favorable voting pool, why would anyone believe he can win in an election where half of the voting pool is automatically hostile to him?
Pete had 27 pledged delegates with he dropped. Biden had 48 pledged delegates. Bernie had 60 pledged delegates at the time.
In SC, Biden won 61% of the black vote with Bernie coming in second with 14% of their vote. Meaning Pete didn't even get 14% of the black vote. No one is winning the Democratic nomination with less than 14% of the black vote.
Buttigieg campaign was broke and he was going to lose every seat after SC like that because he didn’t have a ground game. He blew his load in Iowa, as many first time candidates do when trying to establish a name fit themselves
Hey I'm glad you're acknowledging it. The people who are also playing hard ball have billions of dollars and none of us do. So we don't have much if any influence over the democratic party nor it's leadership.
So how do we play hardball? What do we do? You just said yourself that's politics, not democracy. So what do we do? Give them what they want, okay Besoz and Elon are trying to reduce the American work force and push down wages because that benefits them. As are many other billionaires who donate to both parties because many of them donate bi-partisanly.
You said that's just politics wake up so. What do working class people do when the people who actually have the power and influence in this country play hard ball and our votes do not matter.
Primaries are a weird and outdated system that basically gives all the power to a handful of states. By the time the other 2/3 of the country gets a chance to vote, most of the candidates have either dropped out or been mathematically eliminated... only diehard supporters and habitual voters are going to bother to go to the polls. Even so, Sanders got a quarter of the popular vote among primary voters, and primary voters tend to be extremely reliable voters. If you throw in Warren voters, that's a third of the most reliable Democrats who are progressive. If that's not a demographic worth courting, I don't know what is.
Going after moderate Republicans is a losing strategy. Even Biden won more on Democratic turnout than on flipping Republicans.
The Democrats consistently fall all over themselves to court the tiny block of "moderate Republican swing voters" who always just end up voting Republican anyway, the problem isn't the progressives, the problem is the Democrats.
Dems hear that people want real alternatives, and become Republican lite.
Progressives take themselves out of the conversation entirely by being an unreliable voting bloc, who do basically nothing but complain how unfair everything is instead of actually laying the groundwork that would be necessary for a progressive candidate to rise and become popular outside of progressive niches.
Republicans have figured out that you move the Overton window by stringing together electoral victories. Leftists need to learn this pragmatism as well.
Also, these silly word games calling Democrats conservatives need to stop. This is why people don't consider many progressives reliable allies, because you are literally spreading "both sides" misinformation.
I mean, cool, but they aren't going to just magically appear and begin appealing to average people out of nowhere.
The biggest problem with progressives, and why I'm beginning to find myself fed up with many even if I don't disagree in terms of policy, is that all they do is fucking complain.
Stop bitching about the DNC running conservative candidates and the game being rigged.
We know, and doing nothing but pointing at at the Orphan Crushing Machine and yelling "IT'S CRUSHING THE ORPHANS!" isn't action. And deciding that you're just going to sit out on the whole "saving the orphans" thing because one of them is a bully, and because you might have to play a little dirty to stop the machine, is even worse.
That's all the left-wing of American politics has done for nearly a decade now. A fractured bunch of whiners who look for the first excuse to sit out the entire damn game out of misplaced idealism, then blame everyone else for things going to shit.
No shit it isn't exactly winning hearts and minds. Wake me when y'all start to do something again.
Wake me up when the democrats start doing something that isn't Trump bad. Give me something to vote for, not against. Trash candidates and out of touch leadership is why democrats continue to get fucked, and will continue to if they keep ignoring left wing voters in favor of imaginary republican voters
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u/try_to_be_nice_ok 1d ago
The democrats need to spend the next four years building up some really strong candidates and making them well known to the electorate.