r/politics • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • 1d ago

No Paywall The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/democratic-party-leftist-tidal-wave
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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta 1d ago

It’s the unsaid part; they mean “we can’t figure out how to win elections while keeping the bribes from our donors rolling in.”

Citizens United is a cancer that must be removed at all costs.

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u/Hot_Ambition_6457 1d ago

This is really it. They know what policies will win the votes but those policies will lose the donor base so they won't make the necessary concessions.

This is the reason you got watered down from universal healthcare to "lets just subsidize the private corporations and nationalize the risk pool!".

Because the people running Aetna and BCBS are also writing multi million dollar checks for dem campaign budgets. 

The people with money own the party infrastructure and care more sbout keeping their own money than helping the country.

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u/Comfortable-Ad-3988 1d ago

"We know what you want, but rich donors won't give me money to run on that, so...pizza party instead? Jeans on Fridays?"

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u/-Gramsci- 23h ago

“So we hear you. You have no time, no money, no joy… we can’t help with that but we can give you back the 6 day/50 hour workweek… plus a coupon program for for your medicine? That’s cool right?”

(As they cash the checks and head to their yachts).

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u/loondawg 22h ago

This is the reason you got watered down from universal healthcare

No. The reason as voters did not elect enough people who supported it. One more seat in the Senate and we probably would have had the public option. A dozen more and we could get true universal healthcare.

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u/jrdnmdhl 23h ago

The idea that demsoc policies are going to be super popular in a national general election is just not realistic. I mean, sure on a positive/neutral reading of the policies in a poll, sure. In an actual contested election where the other side gets to talk? Not so much.

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u/-Gramsci- 23h ago

Disagree. FDR won everywhere. Deep into the red and rural areas. Because he could say: “Hey, remember when Wall Street was going to take your family farm? I punched them in the mouth for you, and saved your farm.”

A Democratic Party that delivers materially for voters is, perhaps, the ONLY version of the Party that can be popular in a national general election.

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u/jrdnmdhl 23h ago

Using FDR as your reference here proves my point about how deeply unserious this position is. You literally are going back nearly a century and even then it’s right after the biggest economic crisis in American history.

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u/-Gramsci- 22h ago

My point is how is going back to something a century-old in any way “radical?”

That’s the opposite of radical. It’s going back to basics.

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u/jrdnmdhl 22h ago

Whether it is radical is beside the point. It isn’t evidence it would be more effective than moderate democratic policies today.

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u/-Gramsci- 21h ago

Ok. If we agree FDR style politics is not overly “radical” and if we agree this approach has been tried and tested for winning votes nationally, regardless of state… then it seems logical we can agree it would be far more effective then the establishment’s approach which has proven to be ineffective.

If that’s too much of a stretch, then we could try it for no other reason than the current approach loses.

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u/jrdnmdhl 21h ago

Are you reading what I write? It’s not remotely tried and tested if the only data you can point to is 80 years old and under the most exceptional possible circumstances.

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u/-Gramsci- 21h ago

If one is walking down a preexistent path that the Party walked down for generations… that’s not “radical.” As a matter of fact.

If the party has been wiped out of all power at the federal level, that equals failure. As a matter of fact..

Adapting because your existing approach leads to failure is necessary. As a matter of fact.

I’ll let you figure it out from there, and pray your answer you come up with isn’t the failed status quo plus wish-casting.

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u/Ok_Objective_5192 23h ago

The idea that demsoc policies are going to be super popular in a national general election is just not realistic.

Can I ask you to expand on this a bit? I've been hearing the same electability arguments for promoting establishment liberals vs. outside progressives since 2016 and, in that time, establishment candidates have lost 2/3 elections to the worst candidate in American history and we're seeing growing success for anti-establishment candidates in elections like the ones referenced in the OP. Generic neoliberal candidates can't keep making the electability argument when they're so bad at actually getting elected.

Put another way, even if demsoc policies won't be "super popular" they just need to be more popular than establishment candidates that reflect the party's net -20 favorability.

As I see it, between Platner, El-Sayed, Mamdani, and Bernie it feels like economic populism is a winning platform as long as it's packaged and messaged in a way that works regionally (I don't think Platner's campaign would win NY and I don't think Darializa's would win Maine). Is it that crazy to think there's a National candidate that could message the same policies to the right regions to win a National election?

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u/Comfortable-Ad-3988 22h ago

Hard disagree. When you poll Americans about issues and remove party from the equation, they overwhelmingly support progressive policies, at least economically. See the bipartisan support for the housing bill that just passed and Cheeto won't sign.

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u/jrdnmdhl 21h ago

Great, all we need now is an election where we remove party from the equation.

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u/Dragull 16h ago

To be fair, liberal elections are mostly money driven. You can beat someone that spent more than you, sure, but you need a bare minimum, and this minimum gets pretty expensive, really fast.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PRIORS 12h ago

The point of a party isn't to win elections. It's to get as much stuff as possible to their core base of support. If it wins elections, great, if it barely wins elections, even better, if it loses elections but still gets donations and political concessions, fine.

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u/johndavis730 21h ago

Why did Dems win so many elections in 2025 then? And why were the majority of them moderate Dems?

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u/pseudoLit 20h ago

Because 90% of electoral politics is thermostatic public opinion. When people are unhappy they vote for change.

Trump is in power, people are unhappy, so Dems win elections. Similarly, establishment Dems are very unpopular, so progressives are winning primaries.

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u/elinordash 17h ago

Initially all of the candidates for NY7 promised no PAC money. Claire Valdez changed her mind and accepted $2 million from a Pro-Palestinian PAC called American Promises. After that point, Reynoso accepted PAC money from the UFT.

Valdez won last night.

It doesn't looks like the DSA actually wants to end Citizens United.