this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Yeah definitely don't vote for guys who enacted the laws banning large campaign contributions from companies until the conservative SCOTUS threw it out seven years later.
The guys who expand welfare every time we let them in.
The dudes who regulate large companies and protect the environment.
The ones who stand with the people on the picket lines.
The party who as a whole defend rights to our own bodies and reproductive rights.
The people who want to tax unrealized gains and create a wealth cap.
They're not going to protect us from monied interests or christofascism.
/Sarcasm
Mmm.. I would have voted democrats, if I was american (we have a similar situation here in aus).
But I'm under no illusion that they will save us. Both of our centrist parties (Dems, Labor) are still completely on board with neoliberalism and are still expanding environmentally destructive industries. Yes, they are clearly less fucked than the right wing parties, but they also aren't going to save us. We need to do more than just vote.
If they could win consistently, there would be space in the party for more people like Bernie and AOC to push it toward the left. As things are, they keep losing to Republicants and this keeps pulling them to the right. What we need is a fight inside the party to change what it is. We can’t have that as long as we keep losing the fight outside the party to people who are vastly worse than everyone in the Democrats.
Perhaps. Personally I think the causality is the other way around. If the left within the Dems had more influence, the party would be more inspiring, and more people would get out to vote..
But yeah, either way, unless you're inside the dems making that happen (and that's hard, because the neoliberals within the dems have lots of money and power), then you don't have much influence over electoral politics. Better and easier to get involved in other forms of politics, IMO. And work on the voting stuff when you're near an election, if you want.
I’d love to believe that everyone world turn out for more liberal policies but unfortunately the bulk of democratic voters are not like me. At least right now they aren’t confident enough to take risks on further left policies. Winning is what emboldens more risk taking, not losing.
What do you think WOULD make more people turn out for the democrats, if not more progressive policies?
I feel you may be thinking that I’m against more progressive policies. Nothing could be further from the truth. I travelled to a neighboring state to campaign for Bernie during the primary where he was up against Biden. What I learned from that primary is that democratic voters are not in fact champing at the bit for more progressive policies. Don’t ask me why not. I believe it’s probably multiple answers. A lot of them are old and still carry the ancient stigma toward socialism. A lot of them are affluent and while they might like to see a kinder world for trans and gay people, are not eager for economic revolution. Some are minorities who don’t necessarily want their race to be spoken to like it’s their main issue, and economically may in fact be entrepreneurial minded and not aspiring to government incentive programs.
I do think that we need to win the voters back and actually have a progressive movement again. We don’t have one now. It’s not just the politicians holding us back from the progressive agenda we truly want. I want it, you want it, but we are not the norm. And as long as we’re fighting for our very lives against fascists, it will never be time to split the left so we can push the tip of the spear further left.
I don’t like it. That’s just the way it is.
Seems like this is something the democrats really need to put a lot of work into figuring out. But it doesn't really seem like the mainstream of the DNC is all that interested. It seems like they think they already have it worked out, and that people should just follow along..
Re: "progressive" and "socialism", sure, I get you. I think that there's potentially a LOT of scope for simple reframing that would resonate though, like Gary's Economics' "tax wealth not work" frame. But I don't think the DNC would pick that up, because too many of them are wealthy, or mates with wealthy people...
Yes dem leadership and many of the voters are affluent and hardly the people we should look to for economic revolution.
Many more are middle class and trying to become upper middle class. They think they can gain more from capitalism itself than by trying to tame capitalism.
A lot of working class people are in exactly the same mindset. They want to make it, not restructure the government to support them at their current level.
I think there’s a huge psychological barrier there in the US. Everyone believes they are better off than they actually are, and on the way to do better. NO ONE thinks “I’ll always be working class so we should pass some laws that will make it more tolerable.”
Many working class people are too busy with survival to even figure out how to vote. Others are so soaked in religion that they either don’t care about politics or just go along with conservatives because of abortion. Others are swayed by the racist nonsense from the Right. And a few minority voters HATE the way they democrats talk to them as a category - a few of these go for Trump as if to prove to everyone that they are a maverick, not a demographic.
Nowhere in there is there any great center. Union workers may be pro working class but they may also be anti-immigrant or transphobic. Black voters may be pro-working-class but they may also love Trump’s anti-China shtick. I have a pet suspicion that a lot of Hispanic voters are not at all supportive of more immigrants from Mexico, and combined with their religion, easily break for Trump.
Tell me again: where are these people eager for progressive policies? I can get pretty down about it at times.
Pretty good analysis, for sure.
I agree that just dumping progressive policies on top of that is a recipe for failure. I don't know the best way forward, but I'm sure a better way forward is possible, and I'm also sure that existing Dem policy platforms haven't managed it.. I suspect the answer lies in embracing and communicating different core values, but I'm not sure which combination would work with (or against) America's crazy slant toward individualism..
FWIW, I DO think the brat vibe was a good thing to try, even if it didn't pan out. I wonder if it might have with a man (e.g. dark Brandon vibes)..