Democratic political strategy
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Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.
“Why isn’t anybody voting for us”
I think the question they ask is more like “why are people voting for the other side?” …leading to “we need to be more like them”
The problem is theres nothing on our side. Our choices are right of center and so far right they fell off the graph.
There’s also the choice of doing what Bernie did, and build up an alternative from the local level, but that would require people to realise that politics aren’t restricted to TV-level races nor snooze for 4 years.
If Americans did that in large scale they could to the democratic party the reverse of what the tea party did to the republican party.
The Democratic party hates Bernie though. Theyran so hard against him back in '16 and '20. I swear the Democrats would rather lose to a Republican than run an actual left candidate.
That’s because there are only a handful of “Bernies”. A party is not a monolithical block, it’s the sum of it’s members, and the centrists end up being in charge because they are the ones that end up representing the party at most levels. If you want to shift the balance you need leftists to run for school boards, and city halls, and build from there by starting taking over the state committees and DNC members elected by each state (which in turn control the DNC).
If even the most extreme of the extreme right managed to do it in the republican party, there’s no reason why a moderate left movement couldn’t do it in the democratic party - if anything I would expect it to be easier.
Well that would require people to actually go vote every time instead of just bitching online. Or discouraging everyone from voting by saying someone is “Republican light”
Or discouraging everyone from voting by saying someone is “Republican light”
I voted for Kamala. She was still Republican Light. It pissed me off watching her run to the right, it pissed me off having to vote for a Republican Light platform, it pissed me off that it lost her the election, and now we have fucking crazy man in the whitehouse again because they decided she needed to be more like R not less.
I’m not voting Republican Light again. Next time I’ll be one of the ones getting yelled at I guess. If we’re going to keep ratcheting right, I’m at least not going to support it.
The democrats are still at their core a liberal party, and ultimately running a left candidate would be against their interests.
What’s really frustrating is the Dems just dont seem to have any vision of what they want. They clearly don’t want the dystopia of the Trump party, but aren’t really offering a vision of something different or a way things ought to be. (And they won’t be able to as long as they are trying to cater to workers as well as the Wall Street class at the same time.)
You are talking about “they” like the party is run by lizard people ruling by the divine right of kings. The “they” in the republican party also didn’t an obviously extreme right candidate and their base gave “them” the boot.
Fair point, but how else to refer to it/them? I don’t particularly feel affiliated with the party, so them seems to work.
They only look at the votes that were cast not voters who stayed home
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I’m not arguing what the actual issue is, just how they consider the issue.
Sorry, I misread your comment, I think I read first “they” as “to” or something. I agree with you, deleting my comment.
The rightward shift of the GOP and the tendency of the seemingly infinite number of spineless Dem careerist politicians to seek compromise is very real, but please remember the 90s and 2000s, everyone. They were not as rosy and left-wing as you remember; while not nearly enough, the Dems are notably more left than they were then.
Always reach across the isle and punch nazis.
The Overton Window is set in an abandoned lot. The house burned down a long time ago.
not saying i disagree, but people always link this article as though it even has a section on partisan politics. it doesn’t, or really even pose any evidence that suggests the effect applies to the overton window. would be curious if there are any sources that pose evidence.
i just read it and don’t think it applies here. the effect seems to apply to situations where the movement in one direction perpetuates itself, due to cyclic nature or outside influences.
if the democratic party wanted to, they could totally pull the overton window to the left. it’s not like there’s a perpetual demanded for the democratic party to move to the right; they just want to do it.
This fails to recognize that for a very long time things trended left. I remember talking to someone in the 90s and we went down a list of major issues and the left had essentially won on all of them. Roe vs Wade EPA Gay Marriage Welfare Reform and Child Tax Credits
My hope for the Democratic party is that they go to a single issue for the next National election, and that issue should be Anti-trust/Breaking up monopolies
That’s an important issue, but if Democrats ever see power again, it’ll be important to focus on re-enfranchisement (RCV, instant runoff, or anything fairer than FPTP; NPVIC; national mail voting; mandatory voting), on judicial reform to undo the corruption and incompetence that has been packed there. Without those, keeping any gains will be impossible.
Then, triaging existential threats is critical, which will mean fighting climate change, investing in public transport (trains), and breaking up trusts will have to be pursued simultaneously. Stopping any support for genocide needs to happen as soon as possible.
There will be plenty more structural changes to fix beyond that: Protecting whistleblowers and protesters, improving FOIA, replacing norms with laws (Emoluments Clause enforcement, financial records disclosure, no insider trading for Congressmembers, &c), and all manner of civil rights protections and police reform.
After all that, it’ll be time for the stuff I’ve been hoping for: nationalizing healthcare and Internet access, and copyright reform.
Sadly, support for genocide won’t be an issue by the midterms.
NPVIC ain’t going to happen. Not for at least another 40 years or so.
It was a great idea, but this (so-called) Supreme Court would absolutely shut it down in no time flat. The balance of this court isn’t likely to shift for a very, very long time.
The only solution to get rid of EC before then will be a massive movement that results in a constitutional amendment.
Tl/Dr: start pre-lubing your assholes now, they ain’t gonna help you there.
ETA: the funny thing about having to codify “norms” into law was that the expectation would be that government would be transparent enough, and press would be free enough, that lawmakers wouldn’t even think about shit like insider trading, because the risk of getting found out and the hit your reputation and career would take wouldnt be worth it.
Instead, ass hats celebrated it.
Adding seats to the court needs to happen, as well as reapportioning representatives, and giving electoral votes to DC and the territories. We need to find politicians that aren’t afraid to do it.
Yeah it’s very depressing to realize that the country will continue to head towards the shitter, or at least won’t move away from it, until I’m dead or close to it. Probably longer. No matter what else happens, we still have a stacked SCOTUS and a highly gameable (and also stacked) district court system. Mitch didn’t just hold up a SCOTUS seat nomination…he held up a ton of lower court seats, too.
Sorry kids. Buttery males.
Things should be progressing no? that’s the whole point of being the “progressive party”
You’d need to explain how this helps the average person.
Bearing in mind that these employers have hundreds of thousands of people working for them, you would need to somehow ensure that people aren’t voting for a spike in unemployment.
FWIW I don’t disagree at all, but how would this be implemented in practice, and how would it be framed as a good thing for those employed by those companies?
just playin’ the long game. won’t be long now and it will loop around to the far left.
So, everyone’s hoping for the bit overflow
The reverse Ghandi.
This guy civs
Yup, we just need to accelerate and we totally won’t end up in a fascist dystopia
I always knew the political quadrant was, topologically speaking, shaped like a pacman game
Frankly the people are the ones moving further to the right because the state does not educate them and regulate corporate power, transforming the public into a myopic panicked herd.
That’s actually false. When it comes to policy preferences, the actual electorate swings pretty far left compared to the right wing and far right parties they can choose between. Universal health care, parental leave, paid sick leave, higher minimum wage all enjoy broad and firm popular support, and neither party is even talking about this.
!! yea
always important to remember that the electorate’s preference in policy has only a loose relationship to who they vote for. this air gap is where most elections are fought, where strong messaging tightens the gap and messaging failures loosen it. the 2024 presidential election had a hella loose connection between party and people.
That connection is much less loose if you consider how right wing the democrats have gotten over the years. And beyond that, note that a big part of Harris’ loss is that her republican light “I’m basically Nikki Haley” campaign mainly reflects itself in people not voting for her. The statistics you mention (or the polls you base your comment on, not sure where it’s coming from) are presumably talking about voters, not the electorate. Harris’ inability to mobilize her base is the problem here, not republicans voting republican.
The statistics you mention … are presumably talking about voters, not the electorate.
nope. the electorate, when polled, shows popular support for progressive policies, and this is true even outside of exit polls.
not really sure what the rest of your comment is trying to say so i will leave it at clarifying that misconception. feel free to clarify if you are interested in further discussion i’m just a bit confused sorry.
Ah I think I understand what you’re trying to say, and I think I’m in agreement. So indeed the electorate is economically progressive, but there is no party on the ballot which represents progressive policies, and hence, by definition, one’s policy preferences have a very loose relationship who you vote for.
yup you got it :)
If you read this study, it mentions people are prone to affective polarization, that is a state of mind that is in itself extreme and it’s related to people being myopic, that is governed by strong emotions such as panic instead of choosing rationally.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t read the whole thing. But I did try to find a section supporting what you say, and sure, it talks about affective polarization, but it doesn’t show anywhere that this leads to people voting irrationally in the sense of voting against their own material interests, as far as I can see. Is there any section you’re referring to specifically?
The rise in economic inequality in the United States appeared to be causing congressional ideological polarization—but congressional ideological polarization was also leading to increases in inequality, so causality was a vicious circle. Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal found in 2007 that inequality exacerbated ideological polarization, and ideological polarization led to policies that further increased inequality. In other words, they found that people with vastly differential wealth had different policy preferences. But ideological differences between Republican and Democratic partisans led to the failure of redistributive policies, thus exacerbating inequality.
Basically, economic inequality leads to elite polarization (at the congress level) that limits the political agenda to policies that do not benefit the public, so that the public can only vote against its interest. This leads to more economic inequality and so forth. There are more layers to it, such as economic inequality creating elites in the private sector and leaving politics to incompetent people that are manipulated by the business elite. My initial description is somewhat simplistic, but essentially the public is cut off from the elite due to economic inequality, leading to political polarization as the only differentiating factor in policy, so that the public can only vote against its interest.
This could mean that there’s room on the left for a brand new party.
Only if America will implement proportional representation
It could if we weren’t locked into a two party system.
I mean, if there ever was a time for a grass roots growing of a third party, it would be NOW, not a year before the election with Putin-stooge Jill Stein.
I can agree with that, but I’m not sure it will happen. And like most people I’m too busy trying to keep a non-negative balance in the checkbook to do much about it.
Yes, but please voting reform at the same time. I do not enjoy this rollercoaster where we vassals of the US cross our fingers and hope the nut jobs don’t get into power.
And then they do.
Please for the love of God, make voting reform the number one issue above all else, because it affects all else.
There are plenty of people trying but it is clearly not working
/genuine question, asides from the obvious of republicans adopting left policy, what would have to happen for another party switch to occur?
like, i know it happened once. wondering what circumstances and context brought that about and if that’s even a realistic framing to think about today’s world?
There is also the Whig party for reference. They were one of the two parties until they refused to take a meaningful stance on slavery. They were the ‘bipartisanship states rights solves it’ party versus the ‘pro-slavery’ party.
There is no longer a Whig party and the slavery party went to war over a decade or so after the anti slavery parry formed.
So there’s that alternative to Party switch.
I agree. I think we’re at the stage where the Democrats are the Whig party. They aren’t going to change, they need to be replaced with a true progressive party.
Assuming that we continue to be as much of a democracy as we were, now might be the time for that replacement to happen.
Knowing Better has a good video about the Party Switch, although I’m not sure it’s applicable to today
Remember back in the past, when Democrats were communists and Republicans were social Democrats? Oh wait, that never happened, this graph is nonsense
This is recent history, not all history, and FYI it is a meme not a scientific study.
When they don’t have all 3 (house of reps Senate and presidency) they are forced to reach across the aisle. And they’ve had all 3 for, drumroll please, 4 of the last 24 years. Or 6 of the last 32 years. Or 6 of the last 44 fucking years. Don’t want them to reach across the aisle? Then give them consistent and overwhelming victories.
ultimately its the voters. we have primaries as well as general and remember congress is what can really change things. The last election shows voters felt we were not right enough at all levels.
I think thats an over simplification.
Disinformation is part of it. Also leftist voters feel disempowered (they shouldn’t, but they are). And voters often don’t understand the politics behind good policy.
Its been shown that if dem policy were presented, then voters would overwhelmingly support it.
Maybe voters are more left than dems, but don’t like dems fundamentally, because they have no backbone.
Sure there is disinformation but it does not nullify information. The voters can’t say they did not know what trump was like or what the republicans have become. There was the four years previous and everything they actually say. If folks voted for it, its what they want. If folks did not its still what they wanted. What else would someone expect the results to be. What have the results been in elections before. We all know we have first past the post. We all know its a two party system. We can get that changed but its going to have to be a the primaries and working at every level. I hope the majority make better decisions in two years if they have that chance.
Everything you say might be right.
I think its perhaps a bit overblown…
But how do you plan to fix this? Go around and talk to each voter? No, let’s think about why they became the way they are. I guess we could talk to voters that are disengaged and learn why. We could see what systems are in place so we can change them.
That seems more productive to me.
Do you think im saying to not do anything because I am not. Just don’t paint the better option as the reason when there will be an actual us political party doing the things for the next 2 and 4 years. Lefts move left by choosing left, even if its not as left as we want it to be lets still move that direction.
That’s a slope, not an aisle
