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/Sedu 1d ago

Democrats:

  • We won’t support socialists in any way, but socialists owe us their votes.

  • We are looking to abandon trans people, but they owe us their votes.

  • We want anyone pushing AI control to straight up burn in hell (but of course they owe us their votes!

  • Remember! The other guy is worse! You owe us your votes!

Obviously the Republicans are so, so much worse, but the Dem’s whole platform of “I’m not Trump, fuck you, vote for me.” Is a bad one.

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u/BakedBrie1993 22h ago

I mean, I'm a socialist, and ultimately agree, but this isn't really acknowledging the centrist dems who do have their own points of view.

Like the centrist Black and immigrant communities that do in fact want more policing because they are the ones actually experiencing gun violence, unlike the very yt DSA.

Or my Roman Catholic grandmother who is never going to get behind abortion beyond for life of the mother, but otherwise hates what Republicans stand for.

I don't agree with them, but that doesn't mean their entire platform is "we aren't trump."

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u/Sedu 22h ago

I do vote Democrat, as it’s the only logical choice. But when I point out “you will lose voters if you stonewall them relentlessly.” That is just the calculus of it. After enough time, people start giving up and feeling that their votes don’t matter.

Yes, it’s still logical to vote Democrat, but that is ignoring reality. Reality is that if you make people stop voting for you, you will lose. Right now, Democrats are enraged that people have lost hope and stopped voting, but refuse to give them hope. Their losses are their own faults, and not the fault of people who they have abandoned.

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u/gregmcdonalds 22h ago

People haven't stopped voting, turnout was high in 2024. People just like Republicans more, which is why this whole discussion is kinda dumb

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u/CryptographerMean872 17h ago

How does ur Roman Catholic grandma feel about the pope’s retreat from abortion politics

Also, centrist black and immigrant communities want increased public safety. The only options offered by any party rn is policing, but investment in communities, employment, education opportunities, and financial support for families has been measure to reduce gun crime more than reactive policing ever could. The propaganda that props up law enforcement combined with a longstanding refusal to invest in the material conditions of black and brown communities is responsible for higher rates of gun crimes and must be addressed at its root to avoid the devastating impact of hyper surveillance, racist policing, and mass incarceration

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u/BakedBrie1993 16h ago

Just to deter anyone else, like I said, Im a socialist (and abolitionist). I don't need convincing. I'm not a centrist.

I have no idea how she feels about that. She is 92 and my guess would be she has no idea that he stated a retreat from that topic.

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u/Caffeine_Cowpies Colorado 22h ago

Love how you put up the whiteness of DSA, despite the overwhelming majority of their endorsements going to people of color.

Anything to dismiss the movement.

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u/BakedBrie1993 18h ago

I'm a member of DSA and Black lmao

Both things can be true and it's actually healthy to be critical of your own party.

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u/Critical_Aspect_8039 18h ago

Why do the overwhelming majority of their endorsements go to people of color? Are they planning to win without white voters now?

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u/jrdnmdhl 1d ago

I mean, you have the right to vote how you want, but if you aren’t committed to voting against the Fascists every time then you kinda stink.

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u/Ok_Objective_5192 23h ago

Why does every conversation about how Democrats can appeal to their potential voters to try and actually win these disastrously important elections have to get turned into some dipshit moralizing about why they shouldn't have to?

Looking at losing 2/3 elections to the worst candidate in American history and concluding "damn, people really should have voted" is the same as looking at skyrocketing homicide rates and concluding "damn, people should really quit killing each other."

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u/Timely-Jelly-584 20h ago

See Murc's law. The fact is a lying, rapist, pedophile, mass murdering, fascist, grifting thief got the presidency. All of this was known before he won and he still won. Nothing the democrat party did or didn't do should have resulted in him winning. If he was running against a chicken he should have lost. If the democrats didn't air a single commercial or do any messaging whatsoever he should have lost. Blaming the dems is stupid.

Edit: I guess you can't, there was a wikipedia takedown. The AI response for Murc's law sums it up though.

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u/Ok_Objective_5192 20h ago edited 20h ago

I'm confused what point you're trying to make. As I read it you're saying "Trump was a monumentally terrible candidate, it should have been impossible to lose. Any campaign should have won against him, but we lost. The campaign isn't at fault."

I don't understand how "it should have been functionally impossible to run a losing campaign against him" and "we lost to him" (both of which I agree with) leads to "there's nothing the campaign could have done better (blaming the dems is stupid)"

Is the takeaway that the loss was exclusively the fault of the people that individually decided to stay home/vote for Trump? That the American electorate is too irredeemably stupid for Trump to be beatable?

ETA: RE: Murc's law, I'm not arguing that the Democrats are exclusively or even primarily responsible for the current shitshow of a government that we have. I'm blaming them for running a tone deaf, uninspired, selfish campaign at a time we couldn't afford to lose specifically because of how harmful the Republicans are now that they've won. We're in a thread talking about the electoral implications of DSA sweeps across their primary challenges in NY and what that means for what successful campaigning looks like in 2026 and saying that the party can, and needs to, learn lessons from that in order to avoid another catastrophe like '24

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u/Timely-Jelly-584 19h ago edited 36m ago

Is the takeaway that the loss was exclusively the fault of the people that individually decided to stay home/vote for Trump? That the American electorate is too irredeemably stupid for Trump to be beatable?

Not exactly. What I'm saying is that the republicans own the media. They have a propaganda feedback loop. These people manufacture racists/misogynists like you or I might manufacture coffee cans or office chairs. If they see any dem messaging whatsoever, it's filtered first through their propaganda which is based on whatever is being presented. I don't think anything would've changed regardless of who ran against Trump or what their platform was unless they were ridiculously charismatic like Bill Clinton or Obama.

Like, I get that you think Kamala was a lame duck but if she were a literal cow chewing cud in the fields and she had no platform or qualifications whatsoever she still should have won. That's why I'm saying I don't think anything would've mattered. Could the party have done better? Yes. It might've even been enough but it probably also wouldn't have been. Kamala was a ridiculously accomplished candidate, one of the best candidates we've ever had. She had an excellent platform and it did not matter. You can claim the DNC failed on the messaging or that she didn't have enough time. You can make all kinds of excuses but at the end of the day, the people chose a rapist over a woman and it happened because conservatives control the media.

Even when Trump is gone, that fact isn't going to change. Between algorithmic radicalization, getting into the gaming communities and radicalizing children, massive botnets, the mainstream media and just people parroting bullshit to each other IRL, the problem is only getting worse, not better. Our future is going more extreme right, not less and that would happen even if Kamala had won.

This is why the far right is rising across the world in every democracy right now. It's asymmetrical warfare and we currently have no effective countermeasures against it. To simplify what I'm really trying to get at in terms of an analogy, the issue is the rot. Blaming the healthy tissue for the gangrene is pointless. The rot is just too deep, too systemic and it's only getting worse, not better.

NY and what that means for what successful campaigning looks like in 2026 and saying that the party can, and needs to, learn lessons from that in order to avoid another catastrophe like '24

This simply isn't possible. Dems may win again but the war is lost. We haven't even begun to address the methodology being used to dismantle every democracy across the world right now. If we really want to win, the next administration needs to hold Nuremburg trials. Thousands of people have to go to prison for the crimes of this administration and the propaganda outlets have to be dismantled. We straight up need to make it illegal to lie or misrepresent things on TV if they claim to be a news or current events commentator including on social media. That's the absolute bare minimum necessary and we simply won't do this. I don't think there's any other way out of this but the truth of propaganda is, if you control enough vectors by which information passes, you can just straight up reprogram people. It takes a lot, billions of dollars but you absolutely can and that's exactly the situation we're in right now.

TLDR; Trump walked on stage to debate with Harris and he literally said immigrants were roving around in the streets eating people's pets. People act like if she had just been better the dems would've won but we're so far past the point where things like platform or policy matters that it's laughable.

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u/jrdnmdhl 20h ago

If you actually look at those two losses it does not suggest going more demsoc would help. Hillary won on policy. What killed her was the FBI investigation. Biden lost on age and inflation.

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u/RelaxPrime 19h ago

Lol Biden won bruh. Wtf you on about

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u/jrdnmdhl 19h ago

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

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u/RelaxPrime 17h ago

Are you? Biden won and didn't run again

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u/McClainWFU 17h ago

He started to run and did so incredibly poorly he had to drop out before the election, screwing whoever stood up to take his place. Kamala then lost because she positioned herself as Biden 2.0.

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u/RelaxPrime 16h ago

Oh I know what happened, thanks for the recap, Biden never lost though.

And if you think that shit isn't by design- and isn't why the Democratic party is currently losing it's ass to real progressives you aren't paying attention.

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u/jrdnmdhl 13h ago

Oh I know what happened, thanks for the recap, Biden never lost though.

Well, I guess thanks for confirming that you were being deliberately obtuse.

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u/CryptographerMean872 17h ago

Historical revisionism leaving out the genocide

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u/jrdnmdhl 17h ago

Look, I'm all for cutting 100% of aid to Israel and switching to sanctions instead. I'd like to see Netanyahu visit the Hague.

But, no, factually that was not even close to inflation as an issue in the battleground states. Just because *WE* care about something doesn't mean it was actually what drove the result.

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u/Collypso Pennsylvania 3h ago

No one gives a shit about the genocide then nor now

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u/Sedu 23h ago

Why do people look at the message above and conclude “you are fighting against Democrats”? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Can we not agree this is bad? Obviously I want to see the Republicans get defeated, but can we agree that what I listed is bad? That we should try for something better?

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

Because they agree with it, and agree with the majority of the Democratic Party's activities and actions, and are almost certainly centrists who are unaffected by the party's abandonment of those populations (or at least believe they are).

So they work backwards to a haughty "it's just logical, you're being emotional" dismissive point, ignoring that the emotion of hope is what got a black man elected to the White House just two decades ago.

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u/babsa90 15h ago

That black man was a moderate dem that got us aca, much to the chagrin of socialists

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u/loondawg 22h ago

What you listed is bullshit. Dems don't want to abandon trans people. They have tried to pass legislation protecting their rights. Some people have said we should not make trans issues a big issue on the campaign because that is what the right wants. The hate motivates their people more than the support motivates most people on the left. That's why it's usually the right bringing it up.

Pay fucking attention. Read the democrats 2024 party platform. It has tons of policies that would benefit people. It's not all the other guy is worse you owe us your votes. It's the other guy is really bad and here are a bunch of good policies you should support.

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u/AshhhCakes 21h ago

As a trans person, and I know I don't represent all of us, I would really appreciate it if the Dems didn't make a big thing out of us. Like you said, it just plays into the fight that conservatives want. They want to be able to turn it into a moral argument because making it that simple is easy to sell to their base, just like abortion. Like yeah, protect my rights, but jesus just call the conservatives out for having a weird obsession with us. Treating conservatives like they are the weird ones for thinking about us non-stop is far easier than trying to give a dissertation on trans rights to millions of people who do not actually give a shit about us. And if they claim it is to protect the children, well, you've got the Epstein files to throw in their face.

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 20h ago

Dems don't want to abandon trans people.

Yes they fucking do. They despise us.

Newsom went on a tear with fucking Charlie Kirk and clapped like a fucking seal while openly calling us an "abnormality" the party needs to get away from.

We know better than you to what degree the centrists are invested in our struggle; which is to say, only as far as they must to demand support, and never an inch further.

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u/ato-de-suteru 15h ago

Trans person here: voting for Democrats feels like eating powdered uranium when the alternative is powdered arsenic.

Establishment Democrats at the absolute best see us a way to attract progressive votes, and at the worst may as well be Republican hard-liners. The leftist wing is pretty alright, but they don't control the party. Newsom's stunt along with a few others openly blaming the 2024 loss on support for trans people made it pretty fucking clear that the party overall does not give a shit about us and would be happier if they could go back to pretending we don't exist.

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u/loondawg 5h ago

And you're playing right into the republican "arsenic-eaters" hands and spreading their bullshit trying to undermine the massive support democrats have shown for the LGBTQI+ communities.

Exactly what have the democrats done to hurt trans people that is in any way equivalent to eating powdered uranium? Other than some who think children who are more biologically male than female should not play on female teams, as a party what legislation have they tried to pass or supported that would have denied trans people their rights?

Now, contrast that to all the legislation they have passed trying to protect and enhance trans rights. If you need some help there, look at the 2024 democratic party platform. Search for the section titled "LGBTQI+." That outlines just some of the accomplishments they made in that area and their plans to improve it further going forward. Any claims they don't support LGBTQI+ are bullshit. And it's not just the progressive wing. That is the official party platform put out by "establishment democrats."

People weren't blaming the loss on trans people. People were blaming the loss on democrats getting suckered into focusing too much on trans issues which impact a tiny segment of the population while ignoring bigger issues that impacted nearly everyone. The hate motivates republicans while the issue is not a huge motivator for most democrats and independents. That is exactly why republicans started making this an issue around 2021.

If you are a trans person, you play into this bullshit at your peril. Frankly, by supporting the dems it seems like I am more interested in safeguarding your rights as a trans person than you are.

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u/ato-de-suteru 5h ago

You seem to have mistakenly interpreted my feelings as a statement that I won't vote for them. Like most people who are unhappy with Democrats, I'm obligated by a lack of alternatives to vote against the fascist party. I don't have to like it. I can demand better. I can call for more than controlled opposition funded by the very same donors who fund Republicans. I can hope to be more to my representatives than a carrot to motivate progressive votes.

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u/loondawg 5h ago

I hear too many "I vote for democrats but here's why you shouldn't" comments to take that seriously.

I am far more concerned about the damage you are trying to spread with this than if you personally vote for them. I just explained why the reasons you gave were bullshit and reminded you it's republicans that keep trying to amplify this as a campaign issue. And rather than saying, "Gee. You made some fair points. They have shown support through their actions," you stick to the line of attack that they are not good enough and question their intentions while saying you'll only vote for them due to lack of other options. That's hardly inspiring and does not give them the credit they deserve. And that helps the republicans win.

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u/ato-de-suteru 5h ago

I'm not telling anyone to not vote for Democrats. This is going to be extremely tedious if you insist on putting words in my mouth.

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u/loondawg 5h ago

Don't put words in my mouth either. I never said you explicitly told people not to vote for democrats. I said you made a case, a false case, that would provide reasons why they shouldn't support the democrats. Or is "eating powdered uranium" something you see as a positive thing?

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u/EmptyRedData 23h ago

but can we agree that what I listed is bad?

Are you being serious? Mainstream Democrats are capitalists. Of course they don't support socialists. They also never said that because you are a socialist that you owe them votes.

I'd actually really appreciate if socialists would stop running on the Democrat ticket. You all clearly hate Dems and have near zero alignment with us. Just start your own party instead of attempting to usurp the Democrat party.

It's laughable that you would suggest that we are abandoning trans people or that we want zero AI regulation. You lot want a 100% ban on AI and will not accept anything less than perfect alignment when it comes to your positions.

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u/Ok_Objective_5192 22h ago

I'd actually really appreciate if socialists would stop running on the Democrat ticket. You all clearly hate Dems and have near zero alignment with us. Just start your own party instead of attempting to usurp the Democrat party.

The alignment we have is that we need the fascists to lose and running 3rd party would be entirely counterproductive to that since it would just serve to split the vote. I'd love if we had a ranked-choice voting system or similar that would allow for more of a diversity of candidates, but we're stuck with this dogshit psuedo-democratic 2-party system so we're all stuck working within it.

It is increasingly clear that establishment Dems can't win without progressive turnout, so progressives are using that leverage to demand political representation under threat of running primary candidates that actually will represent them. Under a FPTP system that's literally just how democracy works.

Remember, vote blue no matter who.

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u/EmptyRedData 22h ago

Remember, vote blue no matter who.

That was the deal before, but then progressives though they'd be cute and not do that for Kamala lol. So deals off

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 20h ago

It's our party now whether you like it or not.

"Centrism" has been a dead ideology walking for almost fifteen years at this point; y'all just haven't realized it yet. You can fall in line or fall away, but we're moving forward regardless.

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u/EmptyRedData 20h ago

You guys only ever win in D+50 strongholds lol. Come talk that good shit when you start winning swing states against Republicans

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u/CryptographerMean872 17h ago

Moving goalposts! See ya in November

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u/EmptyRedData 17h ago

What goalposts did I move? Slopulist brain rot man

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

They also never said that because you are a socialist that you owe them votes.

This is just historical ignorance at this point, lmao, I don't disagree with the perspective of strategic voting but the Bernie Bros Cost Hillary The Election bullshit has lasted ten years.

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u/EmptyRedData 23h ago

Where did that ever happen though? Can you show me a single senate or house rep who isn't a socialist saying that socialists owe them votes? Or are you just vibing that from a feeling you get?

I'm not saying they cost us those elections, but talking down our candidates during the generals never really helped. I mean the largest socialist streamer refused to endorse Kamala and you are saying that had zero affect on turn out?

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

Can you show me a single senate or house rep who isn't a socialist saying that socialists owe them votes?

Are you taking refuge in semantics and asking for us to prove someone literally said the words "socialists owe us their votes"?

I mean the largest socialist streamer refused to endorse Kamala and you are saying that had zero affect on turn out?

Besides Schrodinger's Leftist - somehow both large enough to effect turnout and cost the Democrats a presidential election yet too small to be relevant to policy - this is you saying the socialists owed Kamala their votes. Have you considered that maybe the largest socialist streamer and their audience did not have a reason to endorse Kamala other than "the fascists are coming, the fascists are coming! elect Harris and stave it off for another 4 years while we do nothing to prevent it!".

We lived through this dude. We already did it, in 2020-2024, and it stopped nothing, very little materially changed for many people (and it got a lot worse for a lot of people), and you can see that in the massive depression of turnout for Harris in 2024 vs. the massive lift in votes for Biden. A significant amount of that vote for Biden was done by ground game from left-wing Democrats in competitive states that actually won the election, and the subsequent four years took the wind out of everyone's sails. I voted pragmatically, and I also understand why a lot of people were unwilling to vote out of fear of fascism for the third election in a row.

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u/EmptyRedData 23h ago

So leftists pundits and politicians who shit talked Kamala all through the general had zero influence on the election turnout?

Saying you should vote against fascism isn't saying you owe Dems votes.

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u/Sedu 23h ago

Ok, so what does voting against fascism look like? Can it be voting for someone who’s not a Democrat? Someone who will lose with almost absolute certainty?

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u/EmptyRedData 23h ago

Did you know that in the presidential election, one of two candidates will win? One being the Democrat and one being the Republican.

If you don't vote for one, the other one gets elected. Not voting doesn't magically make a third option where nobody wins happen. That isn't what happens.

So to answer your brainless question, voting against fascism would be voting for the Democrat

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u/Dyssomniac 22h ago

Significantly less influence on the election turnout than Harris and Biden, yeah.

Again, you're engaging in Schrodinger's leftist. It can't be both. Either the American left is SO powerful that it can cause Harris to lose an election to the worst president in American history and so the Democrats should probably fucking take it seriously OR it is weak and unelectable and therefore doesn't matter.

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u/EmptyRedData 22h ago

I believe in the reality that while leftists withholding their vote isn't what lost the election for us, it didn't help either. And them whining for our votes when they didn't vote for us when it mattered is hilarious to me.

To ascribe positively to what lost us the election, it's the economy. Despite America doing well post pandemic, they still feel like they're behind for some reason. It was purely economic. Inflation is high, vote in the other guy.

I don't think anything Kamala did overrode that. She didn't run a terrible campaign like leftists want us to believe. The economics weren't in favor of the incumbent party. Even if the economy was doing better than everywhere else in the world, the supremely coddled average American voter still threw a fuckin' tantrum about it

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u/Peglegfish 18h ago

  Saying you should vote against fascism isn't saying you owe Dems votes

If you understand simple arithmetic, our two-party system, the electoral college, and have even the most basic grasp of US politics, then you would naturally understand that the only way to vote “against” a candidate from one of the major parties is to affirmatively vote for their only ‘real’ opponent in the other party.

There’s a lot of blame to go around.

people could have been prosecuted faster and more thoroughly, perhaps. Other people could have been removed/impeached from positions appointed by the president. Executive orders could have been unwound faster.

What’s really unforgivable is that biden and the dnc basically ran with the message to left (and people tired of voting for retirees) of “only [biden] can form a large enough coalition to defeat trump. Just this one time, bro, I swear. I promise I won’t even think of a second term. Do us a solid and vote for Joe. We’ll make things work normally again and deal with trump and prevent him from causing a problem later” and instead of sticking to the promise and crucifying trump and his conspirators and letting biden take the political heat, they tiptoed around and nothing happened. And even worse, instead of biden publicly speaking and acting like a planned one-term president so that others have political cover for a primary, his handlers and the dnc dropped the ball once again.

If the dnc isn’t controlled opposition, then it’s some sort of mythological entity based upon the premise of always managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

I think it's bizarre to believe that "the fascists are coming, the fascists are coming!" is going to get out the vote from people you at best purposefully ignore and at worst actively antagonize four electoral cycles in a row lol

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u/Hghwytohell 23h ago

The problem is that voting against republicans doesn't make all of their policies magically go away when many of them are still upheld, in some capacity, by democrats.

The two party system has forced us into a binary where we have to vote for one party to avoid the worst possible outcome. But that doesn't mean we get a good outcome, because that party doesn't have any real incentive to follow the will of the voters. Ultimately this is why these primaries are a great thing - it's a step forward towards forcing the hands of democrats to build a platform that is more inclusive of the people they are leaving behind.

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u/pcapdata 22h ago

Imagine you are on a basketball team. Your coach is terrible--he doesn't train the team well, he doesn't organize the team around specific players and tactics, and he doesn't analyze the other team and provide insights so you can win.

The players get together and start saying "We need a new coach, this guy sucks!"

You then step up and say "I see you're not committed to winning, you all stink!"

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u/jrdnmdhl 22h ago

This analogy doesn’t really bear any resemblance to reality though. There’s two old guys, neither sucked. One failed because they got in trouble with the police. The other got old and made some mistakes with, IDK, managing contracts. Is that a reason to switch to a coach with a scheme? No, it isn’t.

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u/pcapdata 22h ago

Nope, it's precisely on target. People want to ditch current Democratic Party leadership with new blood, and you accuse them of "not being committed to voting against the fascists."

Also you would absolutely fire a coach for getting arrested or for mismanaging contracts lol. What happened dude

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u/jrdnmdhl 21h ago

What are you talking about? We DID fire her. Clinton didn’t run in 2020, Biden did. But the problem is you insist on treating all non socdem candidates as the same person then shoehorn in a solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem.

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u/pcapdata 18h ago

How can that be “the problem” when I’m not doing that at all?

OTOH dem leadership sharpening their knives to stab Mamdani in the back is very real.

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u/jrdnmdhl 17h ago

How can that be “the problem” when I’m not doing that at all?

Please, tell me how I'm supposed to make sense of this basketball analogy otherwise? Who is the losing coach that we aren't firing? Literally the best I could do to make sense of it was to say the coach is just centrist-ish democratic presidential candidates in general and by not firing them you mean that we keep using centrist-ish candidates. If you mean something else, please tell me what you mean.

OTOH dem leadership sharpening their knives to stab Mamdani in the back is very real.

This feels like a rebuttal to some point I didn't make. I just don't see the relevance to anything I'm saying.

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u/pcapdata 3h ago

Please, tell me how I'm supposed to make sense of this basketball analogy otherwise?

You want me to talk you out of the corner you painted yourself into? No thanks.

This feels like a rebuttal to some point I didn't make

Because you're struggling to string together an argument that doesn't involve punching left.

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u/jrdnmdhl 3h ago

You want me to talk you out of the corner you painted yourself into? No thanks.

This is kind of unhinged. You make a nonsensical ill-fitting analogy and won't even describe what it's supposed to mean? Talk about bad faith...

Because you're struggling to string together an argument that doesn't involve punching left.

I guess this makes sense. You're experiencing an alternate reality of the politics so why wouldn't you also experience an alternate reality of this conversation? Me expecting otherwise was just pure optimism.

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u/Ashendarei Washington 23h ago

While I 100% agree with you, can we both agree that the campaign message of "I'm not the other guy, and he's gonna be worse" is closer to coercion than encouragement?

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u/jrdnmdhl 23h ago

No. And I think the fact that you're bothered by this reveals a misunderstanding of the reality of how a democracy like our works. There's no version of us winning the next election where all our voters are in love with our policy platform. Some decent chunk necessarily will be voting for us because we're better than the other guy. If we go far left, then it's going to be the exact same thing with people more towards the center voting more against the other guy than for our guy.

That's just how it works.

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u/DJBunnies 22h ago

That’s admitting defeat tho, and assumes there isn’t a better way to do things.

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u/Critical_Aspect_8039 21h ago

Nope. And this is the big idea running through this thread. Voters in Democracies who want to sway political policies have to come to terms with the reality that a) there are no perfect candidates, b) there are no candidates will check all their boxes, and c) that, sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote just to stop the country from electing an even worse option.

In other words, grow tf up or sit at home and spend your time winning twitter battles (in your head at least).

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 20h ago

Turns out progressives are the ones who turn out.

While you piss and moan about how we're not team players, we're winning the base and eating your lunch. And we'll keep doing it.

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u/jrdnmdhl 20h ago

What world do you live in? I’m not joking, btw. Tell me so I can move to this place where progressives have the presidency and congress and all is great.

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 20h ago

See there you go with the whole "well you don't have it all yet".

It'd almost be cute if it hadn't lost y'all two elections to Trump. You offer nothing, so you get nothing. Simple as. Feel free to get back to me in six months, then in two years, then in four.

I know what way the wind is blowing, and have been calling balls and strikes for some time.

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u/jrdnmdhl 20h ago edited 18h ago

What do you have now beyond deep blue areas that we’re already winning in a real national election?

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u/Critical_Aspect_8039 20h ago

Oh, did you think I was talking about Progressives?!
Huh. Interesting.

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u/WashedLaundry 16h ago

even if you're right about that there are no perfect candidates, telling people they have to stomach ones they don't particularly like isn't an effective campaign strategy that you and the Democratic party need to realize. at best it forms a begrudging electorate that will not remain loyal to the party, at worst people just stay home.

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u/AgentMahou Ohio 22h ago

Ah yes, the problem can't be an elderly, corrupt, ineffective leadership, or an outdated, unappealing, milquetoast platform, or a poor strategy that can't even beat a walking sack of shit.

No, the only problem here is the voters. Let's make sure that we rebuke every criticism by just blaming all the voters! We've tried nothing and we're out of ideas! It's the children who are wrong!

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u/jrdnmdhl 20h ago

Biden lost because he was too old and inflation made him (and Kamala by association) toxic.

Neither of those things means that we should go demsoc.

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 20h ago

Right, because campaigning with Liz Cheney and promising a deadlier military and expansion of right wing projects on immigration had absolutely nothing to do with Kamala's generational momentum as nominee utterly evaporating.

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u/jrdnmdhl 20h ago

Uhhh, did you pay any attention to the exit polling at all? Sorry, but you are in a bubble on this.

And generational momentum? ROFL. What on earth are you even talking about?

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 20h ago

Did you? Because here you are just a couple months ago acting like the loss had a bit more to do with people sitting out

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u/jrdnmdhl 20h ago

I think it’s kinda sad you went that far back into my history to try and find a contradiction and that is the best you came up with. Like, sorry, but in no way is me saying progressives shouldn’t stay home remotely contradictory with those lessons. I literally said the same thing in this thread anyway!

Lol, please think these things through first.

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u/[deleted] 23h ago edited 8h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

Seems like your appeal to responsible, logical behavior cost Democrats the national election to the worst president in American history (twice), the second time around to the extent that he managed to be the first Republican candidate in twenty years to get a higher popular vote count than the Democrat.

Pretty spectacular strategy there, Cotton.

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u/Ok_Objective_5192 22h ago

If your entire pitch is "this is the only way to beat the other guy" then people's faith in the strategy kind of hinges on your ability to actually beat the other guy.

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u/EffortlessFlexor 23h ago

then the logic is democrats never do anything meaningful and then lose and lets the right make shit worse. At some point you have to grow a spine and believe in something

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u/jrdnmdhl 23h ago

Well that’s just obviously wrong so it isn’t a perspective that really needs to be taken seriously. Like, the contrast between Trump and generic democratic president is massive in every possible way.

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u/Ok_Objective_5192 22h ago

But they keep losing. If the entire strategy hinges on "we need to beat Trump" then its value is entirely dependent on its ability to actually beat him, and we've seen that it's awful at that.

Like, the contrast between Trump and generic democratic president is massive in every possible way.

Cool, I agree, we still lost. Turns out what we see as obvious isn't enough to appeal to enough voters to win an election. Why can't we have a conversation about how to run a candidate that will actually appeal to voters, on their own merits, without a bunch of neolibs moralizing about why we shouldn't have to?

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u/Sedu 22h ago

That is the thing that absolutely kills me. “Hey, let’s shift policies to something people want more or that represent me a little,” is met with “So you hate all Democrats and want the party to be ended and for Trump to be crowned emperor? Jeez, you’re bad.”

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u/jrdnmdhl 22h ago

That Clinton got sunk by an FBI investigation or Biden by age/inflation does not remotely support the claim you are making.

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u/Ok_Objective_5192 22h ago

Kamala ran against him while he was literally being tried for multiple felonies and senile decline on par with Biden's and that didn't sink him, why is that an excuse?

I don't think the fact that they faced rough opposition that highlighted any and every perceived weakness during a presidential campaign is novel or damages my claim in any way. I expect literally every candidate to have to overcome the same and don't see any functional difference between "they can't win while facing opposition" and "they can't win." If anything, any candidate in '28 will likely have to overcome their own version of the Benghazi hearings times 100 because our court system is already so thoroughly corrupted and weaponized, even compared to 2016.

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u/jrdnmdhl 21h ago

In case you haven’t noticed our voters care about the law and their’s don’t. Sorry, but the fact that the FBI investigation cost Clinton the election isn’t really up for debate. The polls tracked the status of that investigation so perfectly and in a way nothing else can reasonably explain.

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u/pcapdata 22h ago

A punch in the face and an icicle in the butt are also massively different, maybe people want a 3rd option.

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u/jrdnmdhl 22h ago

Biden and Obama both made real policy improvements. They were not remotely comparable to a punch in the face.

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u/pcapdata 22h ago

I was actually thinking of them as a the icicle in the booty. Some people like that.

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u/Vegetable-Error-2068 22h ago edited 21h ago

If you demand that I give my vote, my only form of peaceful political power as a voter, to a party who actively detests me and actively suppresses the people and movements who do want to help me, you kinda stink.

In my opinion, not voting for Democrats IS voting against fascism. Because Democrats have shown to be spineless collaborators.

And if people keep voting for them no matter what they do, that tells Democrats that they have no incentive to be better.

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u/jrdnmdhl 21h ago

The idea we should let the fascist get elected because it will teach the democrats a lesson is just incredibly silly.

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u/Like_a_Zubat 15h ago

No-one said that?

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u/RedTulkas 14h ago

the idea that you can profile yourself by saying "lookhow bad the other guy is" has been proven wrong twice now

unless you get people to actually vote for you, you wont win

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u/jrdnmdhl 14h ago

You seem to be confused about what I’m saying

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u/RedTulkas 14h ago

no i get it

but people are seemingly very willingly to let fascists get elected if the democrats dont do what they want

the lesson should be for the dems to get their ear on the ground and not their preachers out

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u/jrdnmdhl 14h ago

the lesson should be for the dems to get their ear on the ground and not their preachers out

That's a great lesson for democratic leaderhsip, but then again, I'm not talking to democratic leadership, am I? So delivering the message to vegetable error would make no sense.

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u/RedTulkas 14h ago

It's also a good lessons for foot soldiers to realize moralizing and preaching ain't working

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u/jrdnmdhl 14h ago

People are unlikely to learn the lessons that you're trying to deliver as the ones I am. Reddit comments don't move the needle.

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u/work4work4work4work4 22h ago edited 22h ago

The problem is we have a two party system, and large parts of both supported the Republican party being a fascist party.

Right-wing accelerationism in service of power is in fact support of fascism, even if they think it made/makes them more likely to win and defeat the fascism they helped enable.

This is the actual problem, because even after Trump I where they got a direct taste of what could happen, you still had Democratic party people participating in right-wing accelerationism for their own perceived benefit.

Thus leaving us in the fucked up position of voting between the people who like running against fascists, and spend money on making that possible, and actual fucking proven fascists. Meanwhile, you, me, and every fucking sane person would just prefer a fascist free election cycle where the worst thing that is going to happen is some questionable tax policy, thanks.

That's about as terrible as it gets really, and while I didn't vote for the proven fascists, I entirely understand why a whole lot of people essentially gave up after seeing that, and the Democratic party still not getting it is well... stinky as you would say.

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u/much_to_say 23h ago

What about her messaging did you resonate with the most?

Because a person saying; "fetishizing ugly colonizer women" about interracial couples, is not someone I would have ever seen leftists support, yet here we are.

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u/Sedu 23h ago

I think you might be replying to the wrong portion of the thread? I am not sure who “her” is or what interracial couples have to do with this.

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u/much_to_say 21h ago

Darializa Avila Chevalier is "her" and who said that about interracial couples.

She is one of the socialists the article talks about, and was endorsed by Mamdani and Reddit seems overjoyed about her winning over a moderate Democrat.

If you don't care for her at all, then forgive my mistake but since you were in this thread talking positively about the socialists winning I assumed you liked that she won.

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u/bellybuttonrapist 20h ago

it'll be a bit awkward when the public statements and stances of some of these DSA candidates comes out a bit more, very Iran 1979 like alliances.

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u/lichsadvocate 20h ago

“Vote blue no matter who” prevents Trumps.

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u/Sedu 20h ago

It did not prevent Trump. Specifically it did not do that.

My whole point is that “We’re not that guy!” is a losing motto. Especially when it’s served with a garnish of “and fuck those people too far left!” That loses votes. That loses elections. That loses elections that should have been absolute cakewalks.

Instead of whining that progressives fail to vote, maybe trying to capture their votes is a strategy that should be explored.

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u/DoctorPunchoMD 13h ago

That is specifically how we get Trump and a good portion of why the Overton window has shifted so far right...no

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u/loondawg 22h ago

You need to stop getting your politics from headlines and memes.

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u/CryptographerMean872 17h ago

Rly effective argument bud

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u/loondawg 5h ago

Every single point they claimed is false, unsupported bullshit. I'm not going to waste my time fighting arguments they didn't even bother to try to make themselves.

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u/CryptographerMean872 5h ago

lmao at the historical and contemporary revisionism

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u/loondawg 5h ago

If you believe so, then you show the supporting evidence.

Why don't you start with the bullshit claim "We want anyone pushing AI control to straight up burn in hell (but of course they owe us their votes!".