Political Memes

There's also the fact that this, "centrist liberal," strategy worked exactly once in 1992 (and that may have had more to do with Ross Perot than anything else), but now there's an entire pundit and strategist class built around it. Most of these people don't mind losing elections if it means they can keep their jobs.

Thank you, this is a spectacular example of how Democrats use faulty logic and bad faith arguments to defeat themselves. I'm going to break it down for everybody so we can all understand why they keep losing.

The Harris campaign must pursue those voters in order to win. They are the voters who live in battleground states.

This is confidently stated as fact, but not only is there no evidence to support this statement, there's strong evidence against it. This is, at its core, the same statement that Chuck Schumer made when predicting a Democratic sweep in 2016:

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

Not only did this strategy fail spectacularly in 2016, we're watching it fail in 2024; Harris has recently dropped in all crucial swing states. The only thing backing up this argument is its proponents' self-confidence (or self-delusion).

Moving on:

Pursuing a hard-left strategy the way everyone on lemmy wants is a guaranteed loss.

Here, we leave behind false assertions and move into bad-faith arguments. Notice how the user completely ignored the voters I mentioned (her base) in order to pivot to what they think is an easier target: Lemmy users. Sure, if Kamala Harris came out in support of the abolition of capitalism, she'd lose, but no (or at least no one serious) is saying she'd win if she did.

What people are actually saying is much more tangible and and reasonable: sharpen your criticism of Israel and increase your Palestinian outreach if you want to win Michigan; don't just talk about the middle-class, get your working-class base out with transformative social programs (like Biden proposed in 2020; stop hanging out with Liz Fucking Cheney, for Christ sake. These are all criticisms the user sidestepped by creating a false dichotomy between the, "hard-left," and Harris' current strategy.

Finally:

This is the problem with the non-proportional EC makeup. Unfortunately it’s not going to change any time soon because the party who wins got there on the old system.

This is unrelated, but incorrect. The Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 elections; they would abolish the Electoral College in a heartbeat, but it would require a constitutional amendment, which they'll never get passed. It has nothing to do with the fact that, "the party who wins got there on the old system."

Anyway, this is how the Democrats continuously fail. First, they convinced themselves that the only way to win is to get centrist voters, even though evidence doesn't bear that out. Next, they dismiss criticism of this strategy as, "far-left." Finally, if they lose (which is looking alarming possible this election), they will blame leftists for not supporting them strongly enough, thus allowing them to continue the same strategy next election without self-reflection...assuming there is a next election, which no longer feels like a given.

Gay panic is passe, it's trans panic now.

Dems will have very little affect (if any) on anyone’s jebus or guns

and yet the bleating of "they're trying to take yer gunnnnnnns" and "war on christmas/christianity" never ever fucking stops