- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
Summary
Democrats must reclaim their identity as the party of the working class to regain electoral strength.
Despite pro-labor policies under Biden, working-class voters feel disconnected, seeing Democrats as defenders of a failing system.
The party’s decline traces back to NAFTA and neoliberal economic policies that favored corporations over workers.
A generational effort to prioritize labor rights, fair wages, and economic security while addressing working-class frustrations are needed.
Without serious reform, Democrats will continue losing ground to populist alternatives.
You must log in or register to comment.
deleted by creator
As a non American, I’ve been told by an American colleagues that the Republicans are traditionally the worker’s party. Could someone please clarify?
Additionally, my opinion is that the entire system needs to be abolished to allow representation from more than two parties to represent how diverse America is.
It’s like pro wrestling. Their gimmick is that they are working class that busts their assess working hard labor jobs to feed their families. The democratic gimmick is that of well meaning and educated individuals seeking a bright future.
But in reality is that they are both moronic abusive assholes and one is a nazi.
deleted by creator
This is absolutely true.
That’s what I’m talking about
The same neoliberal policies republicans supported yet aren’t held accountable for because 🤷♂️
Because Democrats are holding the bag
They kinda were. People hate “RINOs,” ofc Trump is in reality just more of the same, but like the author said he represents a “wrecking ball,” and only thing resembling a deviation from the mainstream Washington consensus.
Because no one expects anything but terrible policy, like those neoliberal ones, from the GOP. People think the dems will be for the people and workers not just the wealthy
So why do people vote for republicans? Come on, just admit it.
The hate, years of am radio/fox News and anti abortion
Biden’s pro-union moves are historic, but voters need more than symbolism. Effectively outlines the problem and proposes actionable solutions.
🐱🐱🐱🐱
I keep hearing this, but Biden shut down the rail workers strike and then slowly got them a small portion of that they were striking for. They would have gotten a better deal if Biden had just stayed out of it.
Teamsters wouldnt endorse him in 2024. Whens the last time you saw unions not line up behind a Dem?
When I look up what else he did, people like to say he appointed some people to some positions, and upped funding for NRLB. NLRB arbitrates labor disputes, but doesnt advocate for unions specifically. And Biden walked 1 picket line, while ignoring some others, like during the amazon strike. He did nothing in many cases where the cops were called in to brutalize picketers and demonstrators in both the amazon teamsters strike and the rail union workers strike.
So all this adoration for him showing up for one picket line for a few minutes, and one needless derailing of a rail strike. And no blame for his ignoring some other labor stuff he could have helped with if he actually cared about labor even just a little bit. Seems like a C- grade to me.
Following the new DNC flowchart: Is that better than an trump? OK, sure. If thats our only yardstick for everything.
Following the DNC critics: is that enough to get elected? Eff No. Biden and Harris both hemorhaged votes amongst union members too, along with every other working demographic. Working people do not see pro business centrists as serious partners. Dress Biden up in the clothes of being pro union all you like, I think everyone see thats thats just performative BS for the chumps. Just like his phony ‘red lines’ in pretending to push against war crimes while enabling them in both constant weapons shipments on the US taxpayer dime, and running interference for Israel in the UN. Should we give Mr best labor president ever a nobel peace prize for his strong stances against war crimes? Or can we stop this charade of his being the best president ever in every possible category?
Biden’s rail decision wasn’t perfect, but it prevented economic collapse while securing paid sick leave—a historic first. Teamsters’ hesitation reflects union independence, not failure. NLRB funding and pro-union appointments are structural wins ignored here.
Biden’s labor record isn’t flawless, but it’s leagues ahead of anti-union predecessors. Your ‘C-’ grade ignores these achievements and oversimplifies complex realities. Pragmatism beats ideological purity in advancing labor rights.
😺😺
Those rail workers were trying to tank the economy. Fuck them. And fuck these unions too. We don’t need unions, we need regulations directly.
the rail companies were trying to tank the economy by not giving them the bare minimum of benefits any reasonable employer should give. They easily could have afforded some tiny amount of benefits, they just didnt feel like it.
No shit. Now convince the democratic party leadership that winning elections is more important that kissing donor ass.
Their goal is never to win elections. Their only goal is to prevent leftist movements and organization from gaining positions of power. To defend these status quo.
Yes they will gladly surrender to fascists to prevent socialists from getting a voice. This is the core issue
Why are you using the future tense?
The best way is to bring single payer health care.
Every other G7 nation has it
Convince the voters to stop falling for culture war bullshit then
Now convince the democratic party leadership that serving their constituents is more important that kissing donor ass.
Convince them of that, and the winning elections thing will solve itself.
lol no it won’t. If I’m a Republican candidate, I can literally just say some culture war bullshit and still beat you in an election. Especially if you’re a woman or a minority.
The problem is “kissing donor ass” is a euphemism for serving themselves.
Losing is more expensive
The problem is they see large donors as the only path to victory as campaigns are expensive
The problem is that they see donations as the end goal and no longer give a shit if they lose.
They don’t have to be. Present the people with policies that they want and the public will do all the work themselves.
The problem is getting the word out is expensive. Advertisement buys aren’t cheap.
They do get the word out. The problem is that we don’t believe them.
A motivated voter seriously engaging with their social network is worth a lot more than an ad buy. The whole ad world is trying to smuggle their advertising as the genuine thoughts of a real person and politics is acting like it’s still the age of Must See TV.
True but is there any indication of that currently working on the same level in terms of the return on the ad buy that a TV ad can produce? Ads are passive and they work.
Do they? We’ve outspent Trump in three elections now and still lost two of them. Is there any actual measure of the value of an ad for political purposes? It’s not like business where you could note an increase in sales after you run an ad campaign, there’s one single opportunity to “buy” and it’s a secret. Anything you learn in that one campaign you just have to hope still applies years later in a different environment with a different candidate.
I’m sure they have some benefit, but the only time I’ve ever seen someone talk about political advertising was either when they were sick of seeing them or when an ad was going viral because regular people were using their social networks to share it.
Don’t convince national Democratic leadership of anything. They’re too disconnected and don’t care about any state they don’t live in. Run for, and take control of state Democratic parties. Start telling national leadership your terms for your state supporting or working with them.
If enough people do that. They will change or become irrelevant.
The only ones that get any level of power or influence within the party are ones that will defend the status quo. A system that’s operating as designed cannot be reformed from within.
What state do you live in?
Where can I sign up? Fuck it. I’ll run for something.
What state are you in? I will absolutely find you the info.
AZ
The state party has some resources here on volunteering and when the state committee meets for elections and whatnot.
You can go here and look at your county party website as well, they’ll have more info on how to get involved/run there. I looked at a few, most of them had a way of singing up to be a committee person.
Best of luck!
Should spread the word. I’ll help. We should have been doing this 20 years ago.
Can we stop this working class bullshit? You people are so damn disingenuous with this. Just say what it is. Culture War Bullshit!
Organizing along class lines is literally the farthest thing from “culture war bullshit” there is.
Yes, AND it’s worth bearing in mind that some democratic strategists apparently think the path to being the “worker’s party” is to embrace social conservatism. Trans people aren’t the reason I will never retire, they aren’t the reason I’ll never be able to take my kids on a real vacation, or why we’re one “get fucked lmao” from being bankrupted by health insurance. The assholes in this party who have a vision of trying to capture moderate Republicans need to show themselves the door. Bernie and Trump both show that you’ll get the votes when you promise big changes to this busted ass system AND people believe that you’ll actually do it. Stop trying to be yesteryear republicans; start promising shit that hurts the big donors’ feelings and meaning it.
Bernie is a loser. So is Trump. Both have lost national elections.
Obama can’t relate 😎
Hillary and Kamala are bigger losers than Trump, apparently, having the same national track record as Gary Johnson.
That’ll be the day.
The Democrat party is not a democratic party, they are a neoliberal, technocratic party. They don’t want the people to rule, they want neoliberal technocrats to rule. I don’t see that changing, anytime soon.
A workers’ party would have to be a majoritarian, democratic party, because the workers are the vast majority of the population.
MAGA took over the GOP in just a few years. I think the same thing can happen to the DNC. Just need a little propaganda, some charismatic leadership, and people willing to slander the establishment.
It won’t happen because Anyone left of center is too fucking worried about supporting a candidate that isn’t completely perfect in their eyes than they are about making actual progress.
I dont think asking for “not in support of wildly illegal war crimes” was a big ask. But evidently the centrists were willing to throw the entire country to permanent fascism to stand on their principle that AIPAC money needed to continue to flow to DNC bank accounts. But yes, the voters are to blame here, clearly.
Leftists would never support a centrist candidate because we are not centrists.
MAGA had a lot of money pushed at it. The Koch Bros independently funded the Tea Party movement until Trump was created, then Russian money began to flow.
There is no such money faucet for leftist groups. In fact, a massive lack of funding has been one of the chief struggles these groups have had for decades.
This took decades. They started in the 1970s. If you think this happened over a few years you are either young or paying attention to the wrong things
Eh, this particular movement started in the 1990s. Then they got focused in the 2010s.
There’s a lot of stuff that also started in the 70s, but the MAGA stuff is way more recent and beyond what they had dreamed would be possible in the 70s. They really, really didnt count on their voters largely giving up on any semblence - claimed or real - of principles. Which was a huge win for them.
The current maga we see today was started by the John Birch Society.
The Christian nationalism starts with Roe debatably even with the Civil Rights movement. The Christian nationalists are the driving force behind this movement. Remember when Iran revolted the religious elements didn’t take over immediately.
There needs to be a worker’s party. It doesn’t have to be the Democrats.
That there are only going to be two viable parties in this country is a mathematical inevitability of how our voting system works, but there’s no reason why the Democrats have to remain one of those parties. If what they’re doing right now is the best they’ve got then they shouldn’t be difficult to replace. A damp sandwich could do a better job.
DAMP SANDWICH 2028
I think that is one of those “far left” ideas that the DNC said they need to run away from.
I don’t know why these articles keep coming up, because the party at large already was. One or two turds in the punchbowl do kind of ruin ones appetite I suppose, but when you’re up against a fascist ideology completely based on lies and bullshit social posturing as issues, you can’t rely on something like being the “worker party” to combat.
Democrats need to fucking smarter and more nimble at turning the tables on lies and misinformation. That’s what we need. They’re fucking failing at that right now.
The problem with the DNCs version of being the “worker’s party” is that the left leaning policies they do pass tend to be things that feel intangible to most workers. They pass infrastructure bills that in theory create jobs, but in reality usually take way too long to actually implement and are killed or watered down by the opposition. Even before they are watered down, they tend to largely be hand outs to large corporations who capitalize the lions share of the funding before anything trickles down to actual workers.
Workers want to see a political party that aren’t afraid of taking direct action, they want to see tangible benefits.
A agree with this in general, but when you’re talking about an entire party, you have dig deeper into local affiliated reps, not the national reps. They aren’t paying much attention to incra crews scamming the system and taking twice as long to patch roads and whatnot.
you have dig deeper into local affiliated reps, not the national reps
The problem with that is that the national party is the one who funds/endorses a lot of the campaigns for local elections, especially in battleground districts. In a lot of cases the local DNC chapters are even more entrenched in centre-right/Third-way politics than the national leadership.
That’s how you get something like New York City who votes overwhelmingly DNC get Mayor like Eric Adams. Oftentimes it’s even easier for local institutions to be captured by organizations with capital.
Unfortunately, the GOP has enemy nations helping them with their campaigns/propaganda.
Theres a massive problem with propaganda in this country to the point where Unions, public school Educators, Farmers, Poor folk just barely managing to survive until their next paycheck would all rather vote for the guy who wants to make unionizing Illegal, who wants to dismantle the Department of Education and public schools, who wants to take away farmer subsidies so that small time farmers collapse in on themselves, and who wants to take away the very federal programs that help poor Americans survive. As opposed to a candidate who wanted to support more unionization across the country and support workers right to strike, who wanted the department of Education to remain in existence and had a teacher as her VP who talked about how teachers needed raises, who talked about going after big time corporations who also happen to be massive farmers and force the small time farmers to sell to them so that the small timers now make no or actually lose money while the corporation gets their subsidy, and who talked about raising the minimum wage to 15 an hour “at least” and supported legislation that would allow for said poor folk to get more benefits and be lifted out of poverty.
Democrats are and were pro worker, even if not perfect. But the workers abandoned them because at least the Republicans say they’ll fix everything right away. And hey if they don’t, these things take time. But if a Democrat is elected and says they’ll fix everything right away, that they’ll change the country and they don’t do it immediately, well that’s just because Democrats are incompetent.
Many many workers are voting for Republicans knowing it’s against their interests because of hatred and bigotry. The Democrats need to do better, the need to be reshaped into a more progressive party, and they need better messaging and marketing, but to say they aren’t already the pro worker party is fucking disingenuous at best and outright spreading far right propaganda at worst.
Democrats never lifted a finger for me. Every time I hear them doing something it’s somehow not helping me again. My wages have stagnated while their donors got richer. Obama bailed out companies that closed production anyway. Dems handled this election so poorly it’s barely believable. I genuinely don’t know if they’re actually opposition. They seem like they’re on the same team as the other guys from where I’m sitting.
No. The Dems must implode and let something actually decent come in
But then the corporations are not going to pay them.
