this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Yes. People want a populous movement. In the absence of left-wing populism (like socialist reforms), they will take right win populism (fascism).
Democrats campaigned on making billionaires pay their fair share and addressing health care and student loans etc so socialist reforms. But the majority of voters were still convinced that that would make them worse off unfortunately.
That might have been in the footnotes of the DNC platform, but Kamala said none of that.
Here's a quote from Stephen Semler's newsletter:
https://www.stephensemler.com/p/a-couple-charts-to-explain-a-harris?publication_id=37298&post_id=151256232>>
When it was being discussed who would replace Biden before he dropped out, many black abd female voters were pissed it was even up for discussion considering Kamala was the vice president. They saw it as her job to be next in line after Biden.
If someone else was chosen all those votes would’ve been lost and we would still have lost.
Since we lost anyways, I would have preferred to have an actual primary process, even if it was a very abbreviated one at the convention. Destroying democracy to save democracy never made sense to me.
It’s easy to say that in hindsight.
Many many many people were saying that the entire time. It has been clear to anyone not drinking the Biden kool aid that he hasn't been as lucid as he used to be, and many people said that if we had debates and Joe Biden won, at least we would have given others a voice. Anyone who supported Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, etc. especially was infuriated there were no debates, just a coronation. Many people were mad that certain states even canceled the democratic primaries. When Biden dropped out, it would have not been that strange for several prominent democrats to throw their hats in the ring - Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, etc. and at least have some sort of debate at the convention.
Many people were saying huh? Were they some of the best people? Why does that sound familiar?
If you don't do anything but glue yourself to CNN, then yes, you wouldn't have heard about any complaints.
How about many articles in The Nation - here's one quoting Ezra Klein calling for a contested convention. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-convention-ezra-klein/
How about a Newsweek article talking about how even MTG is laughing at the democratic party: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-do-democrats-plan-cancel-presidential-primary-debates-1796585
How about a really pissed off Dean Phillips in Politico re Florida canceling the primary? https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/30/florida-democrats-dean-phillips-election-00129403
Breaking Points has also done many shows on Dem party failures in the primaries. Here's an interview with Marianne Williamson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AfS7xnz_M4
None of those people outnumber all of the black/female voters that wanted Kamala so their opinions result in a net loss of votes.
Did they? If they did, then they did a terrible job of it, since many people didn't hear that message. The message that everyone heard over and over again is "I'm not trump". Besides, promising to get rid of student loans as a campaign promise when you just spent 4 years proving that you can't really deliver on that promise seems unwise.
They did and it was loud and clear and everyone I know that voted republican did so because they thought democrats were bad for the economy and polls showed that.
You’re scapegoating democrats for not doing enough when really there just wasn’t enough voters that supported them because of right wing propaganda.
Key word being, "addressing." Medicare for All? Nope. They're going to address healthcare costs. Student loans insanely expensive for the majority of Americans? They already tried addressing it. What are they going to do? Eliminate the filibuster to pass legislation? Stack the Supreme Court?
They've been a little better on taxing the wealthy, but raising taxes doesn't mean much if you believe the revenue is going towards the military industrial complex or, "woke," agenda, based on your political leanings.
Liberal half measures aren't going to work anymore. They need a full-blown progressive agenda and the balls to ram it through whatever institution is in their way.
If democrats try to move left and they lose because of it and then people like yourself scapegoat them for not doing enough then they will move further right next time because that’s what the voters vote for.
Your response is an example of letting perfection become the enemy of progress.
WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? We're two days out from a centrist campaign leading to the largest fucking bloodbath in recent memory, and you're already trying to find excuses to not try appealing to the left? Rejoin reality, dude.
If we don't move further right now and instead move left then we might move further right later!!!!?
Their cognitive dissonance in these threads is just astounding
Astounding but not unexpected.
Democrats moved left and there was a “blood bath”. And your take is that we should ignore the polls saying it was because of inflation and move further left. You’re the one that needs to log off lemmy for a while and rejoin reality.
The Democrats moved left? Fucking when? They've been moving to the right my entire life, and I'm not young. This election they campaigned with Liz Cheney on arming Isreal, a harsh border policy, and adding Republicans to their cabinet.
And yeah, it was the economy and the inflation; it's killing the working class. So why did she tailor her message entirely to the middle class? Their economic message was, "inflation is better, the status quo is good, your wrong if you think the economy needs to change." Then they lost, and your takeaway is, "well, changing to a left-wing economic message would obviously be bad." Get a grip, dude.
Ever since progressives started teaming up with democrats, democrats have been moving left.
Yes, they’ve been reaching across the aisle because Russia has stated it was their goal to drive the two parties in America to extreme opposites so we can’t get anything done.
Now China and Iran and North Korean bot farms are joining them and whether it’s intentional or not you are parroting their talking points.
She didn’t tailor her message entirely to the middle class, youre making that up. Inflation is getting better, the federal reserve is the only one that can control that and it takes higher interest rates and time to accomplish. But that is easy for bad actors like republicans and yourself to misrepresent to anyone that doesn’t understand macro economics.
Republicans won because democrats planned on taxing billionaires and billionaires countered by doing things like literally buying votes and you’re helping them out with you’re scapegoating.
Thank you, this was the most quintessential liberal answer I've ever seen. You display a complete ignorance on how the Democrats drifted from their New Deal roots in the 80s and the Third-Way's pivot to neoliberalism in the 90s, then attempt to frame my knowledge as foreign propaganda. You obviously never even listened to Harris stump speeches, but you feel confident in correcting me on how many times she brought up the working class vs. the middle-class. Then you follow it up by parroting the campaign's talking point on inflation with no understanding of why it didn't resonate with voters (inflation is down; that doesn't mean prices go down; so what do you tell people other than, "inflation is better now, you're fine"?) and trying to blame that failure on,, "bad actors," and people ignorant of macroeconomics (turns out people understand when their groceries cost more!). And then you top it off by blaming billionaires for buying the election, ignoring that Harris out-spent Trump 4 to 1. Seriously, thank you, I have the beginnings of a liberal-denial bingo card with this comment alone.
Congrats you can stereotype people over the internet.
He's not saying all morons are the same he's just saying you're a moron, and you're making his case for him
I’m pointing out that he is stereotyping me as a liberal because of the facts I stated. He’s doing this so he can use strawman arguments based on the stereotype of a liberal.
And you’re just hurting my feefees
I'd peg you as more of a conservative tbh. In any case, completely ignorant of what left means.
My ideology is not stereotypical and I think that way of thinking ignores nuance.
That’s funny considering your username.
So you begin this thread by saying Democrats were too left/progressive and now we must disregard labels because there's no nuance.
Not sure why I'm bothering to engage tbh, enjoy your worldview.
I never said democrats were too left/progressive. Is that an intentional strawman or just accident?
If you’re not going to engage in good faith then yes, please don’t engage.
I can identify ignorance over the internet.
Yes stereotyping is ignorant.
What part of it embracing war criminals like Dick Cheney, ignoring the needs of the working class, and mirroring much of Trump's policies is moving left?
Biden campaigned on similar promises and ideals like resolving student debt and improving the economy. Even personally relevant promises like creating a public health jobs corps (relevant to my degree and field of study). The only thing he sufficiently accomplished were the initial vaccination efforts, but it's as if we stopped having an actual president into and after 2022: The filthy rich managed to get exponentially richer with this war-supply economy and stock market presidency. My student debt is still a burden in the back of my mind and all of my available graduate-entry jobs are either severely underpaid or shilled out to robots that also vet my applications. Until the war profiteer and stock market billionaires actually pay their fair share (which they should have been a few years ago) or provide citizens with jobs that can sustain a healthy living, any good socialist promises that are made are flat-out lies because senility and flacid mental acuity won't even be a valid excuse anymore.
Biden tried to do things like forgive student debt and was blocked by republicans and you scapegoat him for it? That’s a good way to make sure no one tries again. But maybe that’s your true intentions.
Biden was actually fairly committed to the student debt forgiveness, but his blind institutionalism meant he couldn't actually achieve much. He wouldn't push to remove the filibuster until late into his presidency and refused to discuss stacking the court. He was the wrong man to meet this moment in history, and we'll be living with his failures for decades.
Democrats never had near enough seats in Congress to actually expand the Supreme Court or remove the filibuster. He said he would support it but if he would’ve said more than that you would be blaming him for not accomplishing that also, even though it was never possible.
There were procedural methods they could have used to eliminate the filibuster, which he refused to even consider for half his term. They would have needed the House to expand the court, but if they had the balls to do it, then they could have run on it. Instead, they tried nothing and got nothing.
All it takes to eliminate the filibuster is 51 votes. They won't remove the filibuster because that's one of the rotating villains they love to utilized whenever they don't want to do something.
It was blocked by the courts because Biden was trying to use measures that were not within his authority. He was advised multiple times on the proper way to go about canceling student debt. And he never did. Pelosi instructed him that he does not have the authority to use the measures that he tried to do. He talked about student debt as a pr headline.
And all of that populist talk came to a grinding halt once companies like Black Rock started drafting economic policy.