Summary
Historians suggest Democrats might have fared better against Donald Trump by embracing the economic issues championed by Senator Bernie Sanders, who has long pushed for a focus on “bread-and-butter” concerns for working-class voters.
Despite Kamala Harris’s progressive policies, polls showed Trump was favored on economic issues, particularly among working-class and Hispanic voters.
Historian Leah Wright Rigueur argued that Sanders’ messaging on economic struggles could be key for future Democratic strategies.
Sanders himself criticized the party for “abandoning” the working class, which he said has led to a loss of support across racial lines.
More voters should have listened to Bernie.
He told people what to do.
Yes, but people forgot that his real message was to get out there an be the change. Bernie’s message was never about relying on or believing in the Democrats, it was that change only happens when we mobilize.
He told us to get out there and run ourselves and get personally involved and invested in our local politics so we can be the revolution… We just chose not to listen to him.
People talk about “the Dems” like they are a monolith.
AOC unseated a long term Congress member who was tightly connected to the New York power structure. She did it by hitting the streets and talking to the locals. She built up voter support and won her primary.
I know it’s an uphill battle, but it is possible to change things.
Yes, this is what I’m saying. I’m not saying take up pitchforks and bring the fight to the democrats like they’re the villain, I’m just saying not to blindly trust them either. They are a part of the system; even if not in permanent institution certainly in effect. Bernie didn’t say go fight the Dems, in fact he proved that you can strategically use them. But don’t think that D = good or D = hero automatically either.
It’s not about fighting the dems, it’s about trusting in ourselves instead of others. It’s about autonomy and the fact that nobody is going to fight the fight for you, you’ve gotta get your knuckles dirty. Don’t trust anyone to do the work for you, red or blue; get out and do the fucking work yourself.
He told everyone to vote for Dems, instead of make a legitimate opposition to the right
God i’ll never forget where i was when he dropped out. I had phone banked and donated and I was watching his concession speech just…wrecked maaan, wrecked at how the DNC et al had ratfucked him and how tilted the game was… and while I’m saltin my booze with tears someone in the group asks him “What do we do now?” and he says something like
“Vote Dem, vote in your primaries”
and my heart fell in that shitty whiskey with the rest. Maaaan, i never knew i still had faith to lose until that moment.
Haha, I feel similar, I was really mad for a while that he just gave in, but at the same time, I think he did what he thought was best for the country at the time, Trump was and will be terrible for the country, and if the DNC was going to fuck over Bernie and he thought he couldn’t possibly win third party and if he DID fight that fight, Trump would assuredly have won.
Of course in hindsight, he won anyway so it would have been better to take the fight to the DNC then.
It is not the voters job to embrace a progressive modern platform nor is it their job to get themselves energized over said policies
But both parties have shoved that false belief down voters throats that is the voters’ faults when they fail to deliver
Not sure exactly the point you’re trying to make, but you’re half right. It is a politicians job to convince voters to support their policies, that’s true, but it’s also equally true that voters should support good policies. While it’s not their “job” to do so, they still suffer the consequences for failing to do so all the same. No matter how you slice it, people were stupid to not listen to Bernie all this time.
In a democracy, it sure as Hell is the voters’ job to do all that. And more, for that matter.
In fact, the voters should be controlling the parties (if not abolishing them entirely), not the other way around!
It was the DNC’s job to be clear about Bernie’s message. I voted for him in the 2016 primary even though I was bombarded with “radical socialist regressive left” Bernie articles in my social media feeds at the time.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t actively seek out information and just accept the picture painted by the news that’s fed to them.
Enjoy having Trump. I really don’t have any more words for people like you.
You lot gave everyone Trump by refusing to listen to voters concerns.
You apparently have still not learnt.
It is absolutely clear now. The DNC is a private company whose main function is to fund raise, period. If they also win an election then that’s great, but if it comes to a choice between winning and raising money, they will choose raising money. They will never move to the left to win voters if it will cost them fund raising opportunities from the center and right.
This honestly makes so much more sense than anything else. I think you nailed it. Republicans are motivated by money and exerting social control so they write up manifestos (p2025), take over the courts, work hard to disenfranchise voters, lie, cheat, anything is on the table. The DNC does indeed seem fairly comfortable with losing by comparison, despite the fact that the leftist ideals they supposedly dabble in create a moral imperative to never lose. I wonder if Republicans fucking pay the DNC money to run these candidates we all know aren’t the best. They’re just good enough to get votes against mother fucking Trump. But not always good enough to win, barely good enough when they are, typically.
Republicans don’t need to pay the DNC, both are funded by the same billionaires most of the time.
The democrats represent the group of americans that think money and “american ingenuity” can solve all problems. No problem is a real problem because we can always solve it if we just try real hard to make the current thing better.
Thats why they are the status quo party, its literally their whole founding belief.
The republicans are a party of changing backwards, which only works sometimes, usually when people are upset: “remember when things weren’t awful…?”
The rest of the parties are thinking long term and are true parties of change but you need money to make it in politics, or else not enough people even know you exist at the higher political levels. There were I think five “third” parties on my ballot but I only ever heard people talk about one or two of them.
I’m not sure if its more likely the democrat party collapses out of disinterest and a third party replaces them, or if the democrat party will become a true party of change for the future.
It could just continue on as the party of “America is amazing and will always be amazing so vote for us for more amazing.”
Imo, you’ve got all the prices. However, I would put them in a different order.
Short answer: Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.
There’s a small group of king-makers in the US and the candidate who offers them the most becomes president. Recently, the people who decide who gets to be president has started to include social media companies and amazon, who hosts half the Internet. Trump also cozied up to the American owner of the company the owns tiktok. Thats how he won. Trumps also great for social media engagement and news channel views.
Even candidates who happen to be better than the republican candidate, no democratic hopeful worth being of “the left” will ever be given enough money to become the president of America. Even if they started from a position that would appeal to them, they would have to compromise on everything that made them that in order to be allowed anywhere near the Whitehouse by the American ultra wealthy.
What you’re seeing isn’t the failure of the Democrats to correctly triangulate but the strength of the American ultra wealthy consent manufacturing machine.
I don’t disagree those factors are at play, but they’re not as important as you seem to think in this day and age.
Bernie had real grassroots support and the dems stomped it out. The key is populist rhetoric and speaking about change, the DNC has basically been running on “not Trump” and “well things are bad but they would be worse under Trump.” while that is true, that’s not a winning message, give people something real to fight for and you’ll win support.
On the contrary, they’re more important now than they’ve ever been. There also hasn’t been an election where the highest spender didn’t win. Its THE determining factor.
The same people who fund presidential campaigns for Republicans also spend lots of money on influencing democratic nominee choices. The whole things been captured.
Its like you all can’t see the woods for the trees, in the politest way possible. You see the state of trump and all the things that make him an aweful candidate and you say “how could the dems not beat that” instead of “what on earth could exert so much influence that even being that terrible couldn’t stop him?”
There’s no amount of “the dems not having a strong enough message” that overcomes the divide in the candidates, without huge influence. Their campaign wasn’t great but no where close enough to lose to someone like trump, in a fair fight. It would’ve had to have been utterly shocking from start to finish and, as bad as it was, it wasn’t that bad.
Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.
you do know that in all last 3 elections dnc outspent gop by more than 50% ? last time we raised less than gop was with bush in 2004. harris raised more than 1.6 billion while trump raised about a billion. 600 million extra money they get is for not having a candidate with anti-rich anti-establishment anti-israel policies. hillary was similar story yet we barely saw her campaigning compared to trump. where does all this money go ?
compare that to jill stein who raised 2 million. dnc probably spent 10 times that money on just smearing her.
I’m not thrilled with the DNC either, but I’m not buying this whole idea that they are shooting themselves in the foot on purpose. The DNC does better when they win elections.
In previous elections, the candidate that raised the most money was more likely to win. Also, a moderate Democrat won the last election. They made the decisions they made in this election cycle because they thought it was their best chance of winning.
I don’t have access to the data that they have to determine whether the leftist that Lemmy wants on the ticket could actually win the general.
I’d certainly like to believe that it’s just that simple and all the DNC needs to do is put up a pro-Palestine Democratic Socialist and the election is in the bag… I just don’t know if that’s the reality on the ground. If that is not the reality on the ground, are the leftists that stayed home still committed to their protest? Or is there a point at which they would admit that we haven’t had a true leftist on the ticket because a true leftist is not viable?
I hope someone can put together some clear data to answer that question soon… I’m afraid that a pro-Palestine Socialist will get crushed by AIPAC funded attack ads about Marxism and supporting terrorism that will really stick with moderates, and that no matter how energized the base is it wouldn’t be enough to win the general.
I am not saying that they are losing on purpose. I’m saying that they are making decisions about policies and candidates based on fund raising rather than on attracting voters. On purpose or not, they did shoot themselves in the foot by courting disaffected Republican voters. Everyone knew they were not going to win a lot of those voters, but they sure did rake in a lot of dough. I believe that is their primary motivation.
I’ve been saying that since the DNC fucked him over in the 2016 election. I voted for Biden, then Harris, but I never fucking forgot who’s to blame for the state of things now.
Berine had the biggest grassroots campaign I’ve seen in my time alive, bigger than Obama, more individual donations than any candidate ever.
But the DNC knew if they ran a real progressive it would threaten their corrupt racket
I will never forget or forgive the DNC for 2016. I worked on his campaign. I went to the primary, in my state at the time a caucus, and felt the energy and excitement of everyone. He was the real deal. Unfortunately, he’s a little too old now.
Other Dem campaigns often don’t invite their voters to help out like Bernie or Stacey Abrams - instead they ask for money repeatedly. I got a million texts for money this year. It’s giving “Election Christmas” in a capitalist way.
If we had run Bernie in 2016, Trump would still be nothing but a punchline.
Lol at this delusional lib rewriting history that somehow Clinton won over trump 😂
It’s one think to think that Sanders is correct, but to think that the American people would have voted for him in 2016 is just extremely delusional.
In hindsight it seems obvious, but to be honest I really thought Kamala would have fared better.
We all did, you’re not wrong.
It’s a sad reality we all woke up to on Wednesday. Learning that the majority of Americans are ignorant, racist, misogynistic, selfish assholes.
We all did
No, we did not “all” think so, a lot of us have been saying this for quite a while. In fact since at least the 2016 election cycle started in 2015.
When you mean “all”, I wonder who you group in that conception.
Not all of us believed Kamala would win. A good group of people were calling out Kamala’s shit since the DNC, and everything since. With the direction of the campaign, you had a good chance to predict Kamala’s underperformance.
Let’s not kid ourselves here.
This is what many said in 2016 after Clinton lost but we still did it again in 2020 and yet again in 2024. If I were a betting man I’d say that if there’s sill an election worth having in 2028 we’ll see another, even further right leaning, centrist Democrat win the nomination.
Yoyo look, this guy’s fucking nostradamus up in here, right? It’s gonna happen just like this.
I’m thinking newsome is the “perfect” candidate for 28.
Whoever it is, I bet you, just like me can’t wait to be told how stupid i am and actually great they are by credulous online political minds who call parroting the pundits talking points word-for-word fucking theory
Progressives need to start picking a single nominee to get behind right now. Or we’re getting whichever candidate the establishment wing of the party has already selected. Maybe they’ll run Liz Cheney.
To me the main takeaway is that I live in a completely separate reality from most voters. I would have voted on a dead dog over Trump. He is mean, narcissistic and never shows any empathy. On top of that he is clearly losing his wits. If a majority of voters prefers a candidate like this, is even enthusiastic to vote for him, what can you do?
I also know that Lemmy skews left, but I think we have to face the fact that most voters have no ability to empathise with those worse off. There is no left wing politics without empathy and solidarity. What most of us here want is dead.
Is the majority enthusiastic to vote for him? His own campaigning rallies were a snorefest, as far as we saw.
For me the main “a-ha” here is that so many people apparently still believe his stupid story that he is a guy who makes deals to fix the economy. Instead of a con-man. I have no idea why democrats were not able to destroy this “economic leader” image that he has built. Or why Harris and Walz did not focus on the issue every poll in the last month did say was the most important one: the economic situation.
It was also copium. After the infamous debate we all knew Biden wouldn’t win and had made a mistake.
The fact that he actually backed down just gave a lot of enthusiasm to what could come next. It was historic and made us all stop focusing on the fact that he should have never ran for 2024 in the first place.
