112 points

They have no easy path to fix it because they take billionaire and corporate money. If they stopped doing that, the path would’ve been obvious this entire time.

permalink
report
reply
61 points

The US political system has been destroyed by money. Many other western democracies are so much healthier than in the US because there’s very little money in politics.

permalink
report
parent
reply
20 points

Unfortunately, I’m not sure how folks in the US pull it back. The weight of money draws in so much disinformation and outright media complicity that even grassroots movements (eg. Bernie, RCV) have been safely tampered out.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

They better keep it that way.

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

You’ll have to provide them with an alternate source of funding. I’m glad this will be easy for you to figure out. I look forward to this simple solution of yours. Because entire generations have tried to solve this for 40+ years. Since Reagan broke the unions. Who used to provide most of the Democrats funding. You might check into that. There could be a correlation.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-9 points
*

It wasn’t Reagan that sent those union jobs overseas though. But Biden and Reagan did share the fact they busted up union strikes.

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

What’s with the straw man? Clinton did that because Reagan broke the unions. They no longer were the source of the parties funding or power. Instead going after funding from wealthy corporations and businesses who wanted those jobs outsourced. Is this really that hard to understand? Both things were bad one is in effect the other was the cause. You are not rebuting what I said. You’re just playing a game of whataboutism.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Just replace the word easy with profitable and it makes most articles more true in general

permalink
report
parent
reply
45 points
*

Bullshit news. If you look at the boring stats, trumps vote is up a bit on 2020 but the dems vote is down massively.

This was not a big breakthrough for Trump, he made small gains in lots of countues and some groups. But the main issue was a bad Democrat campaign which failed to get people out to vote.

In 2020: Dems 81m votes Rep 74m

In 2024 (95%+ count) Dems 70m Rep 74m

The dems lost 11m votes in 2024! The reps so far have gained none, but probably will be up 1-2m in the end.

So this idea of some great Republican breakthrough is rubbish. The real story is the Dems lost a lot of votes.

If they’d had an open primary and a fresh candidate, or if Biden stepped down sooner and they had an actual contest to pick a successor, or even if Harris had been able to run her own campaign from scratch, they may have had a chance.

The dems lost this election because the DNC backed Biden against all voices who raised concerns about his fitness. When they finally relented it was too late. Then they ran a campaign around abortion and democracy, rather than the number 1 concern of those who did vote: the economy.

The lesson of this election is NOT that Trump has the answers or has made some breakthrough. The lesson is the dems ran a bad campaign and did not offer the voters something good to vote for - 11m voters disappeared - that’s who the dems should have been targeting, not the “never trumps” and going more right wing.

The polls said the country was tied 50:50. This is bullshit - polls only showed “likely voters”. The raw numbers actually showed 1/3 support dems, 1/3 support reps and 1/3 weren’t going to vote. The none voters are who the dems should have been targetting - they’re not never voters because 11m went missing from the election!

The dems lesson is very simple: target the disenfranchised voters with positive Democrat policies. Don’t try to be more Republican to beat the republicans, it doesn’t work and will never work.

They won in 2020 because those 11m came out to vote angry about Trump. The dems didn’t give them a reason to vote for them this time.

They must learn this lesson as they seemingly did not understand what happened in 2016, nor even 2020.

permalink
report
reply
4 points

Id argue people might need to be punched in the face like they are going to be the next four years then realize not voting isn’t in their interest.

They should be voting regardless. If they don’t, fuck em. They chose poorly.

permalink
report
parent
reply
30 points
*

I don’t think it’s that difficult. Trump had a rather focused message: anti-immigration and pro-tariffs. He hammered just two issues and it brought out his biggest demographics, uneducated whites and business owners. The big surprise to Democrats is that this also won over many Latino voters.

Democrats need to be similarly focused on their biggest demographics, with two or three major initiatives to differentiate them from the GOP.

Codifying Roe worked to bring out college educated voters. They should probably keep that.

Now add a major new program aimed at blue collar voters (Harris lacked this) and a major new program aimed at Latino and/or Black voters (Harris lacked this too).

permalink
report
reply
9 points
*

Now add a major new program aimed at blue collar voters (Harris lacked this) and a major new program aimed at Latino and/or Black voters (Harris lacked this too).

This is it right here, Dems didn’t have a big economic plan to get folks back to where they were before the pandemic and so blue collar voters just didn’t turn out for them.

We’ve had 32y of the neoliberal Democrat party and the bulk of the wealth created during that time has funnelled to the top 10%. Voters want to hear about the plan to give them a share of prosperity too and until that’s on the menu they’re not going to show up unless a previous Republican administration makes some sort of catastrophic fuck up.

Bush walked into the 2008 crash with his face and Obama ran on change and opportunity for all. He won, then passed healthcare reform and won again. Hillary pushed neoliberal business as usual and her foreign policy expertise and failed. Biden won because Trump catastrophically fucked up the government’s COVID response and voters didn’t trust him to steer the country out of it. Harris ran on neoliberal business as usual at a time shortly after record setting inflation (and corporate profits) without spending any time talking about how she’d address these things or how they were going to make new opportunity for the working class. It shouldn’t be a surprise that her campaign failed, neoliberalism isn’t particularly popular with anyone except the wealthy and the educated who see the long term benefit of democrats other policies.

It’s pretty easy to see the pattern, Democrats don’t represent the change voters want to see unless we’re coming out of a catastrophic economic fuck-up during the prior administration.

What does that buy you, an unpredictable win every 8-12y followed by 4 more years of business as usual?

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

That’s hard to disagree with. Kerry couldn’t beat Bush even though he was a respectable Senator who also was a drafted Purple Heart war hero in Vietnam. A “Standard Democrat” can’t win in a time of aggravation. You need someone on the verge of Fire Brand to rally the troops.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

You need someone who’s very obviously pushing a “change and prosperity for all” message at this point. A standard neoliberal has very little chance of winning at a time when we’ve suffered 2? 3? once in a lifetime economic crises in the last 25y.

There needs to be some plan to include everyone in the economic prosperity that we’ve funnelled to the top 10% and the candidate needs to beat that drum over and over until there’s no space left to talk about anything else. We already know Democrats are for women’s issues, we already know Democrats are for equal racial opportunity, we already know Democrats are (generally) more sane than the other guy - now we need to tell folks that we’ve got the better plan to uplift everyone that’s fallen behind over the last 30y.

When the other side has candidates willing to say “I’ll break the law to change things” you really have to step up your game beyond “we’re better for long term growth and stability, and by the way we’re not the other guy and we ❤️ PoC.”

(Honestly it’s exhausting that this needs to be spelled out, it’s like national Democrats don’t know a single person who’s been left behind over the last 30y.)

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

The big surprise to Democrats is that this also won over many Latino voters.

It blows my mind that anyone continues to be surprised by this. Republicans have been gaining ground with Latino voters since Bush. How much longer do we have to wait before the DNC stops scratching their heads and actually tries to do something about it?

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*

Bush was popular among Latinos, and got 40% of their vote in 2004. But that’s not true of all Republicans since then. McCain got 31% in 2008, and Romney got 27% in 2012.

Trump himself only got 29% in 2016 (much less than this year).

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Harris won 47% of white women, that is absolutely HUGE in today’s political climate.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-9 points

Definitely. Democrats were too slow to realize how big the problem at the border was and just how much they were getting punished for it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

When idiots are shouting about a “problem” that isn’t a problem the solution is to yell about a real problem louder. The economy would have been a good place for Harris to start.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-3 points

Look here now, we can’t say there are any issues at the border! It’s all just GOP talking points, nothing to see here. And for god’s sake, don’t point out the humanitarian issues. Liberals (rightly) hate humanitarian issues, but they can’t talk about this one because they would have to admit there’s a problem to begin with.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters

Yes, crossing are clearly down this year! But we’re looking at a major city worth of people, even for a “slow” year. The logistics of absorbing that many people are staggering. We would have to build my entire metro area 4 times over just to cover 2024.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Should probably point out that Congress, under Biden, tried to pass bills relating to border control. But republicans tanked it because there being a problem is good for their election chances (and it worked)

permalink
report
parent
reply
25 points
Removed by mod
permalink
report
reply
3 points

Yep. Democrats need to get the fuck out of the way.

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points

The Democratic National Committee needs to get the fuck out of the way. Democratic leadership needs to get the fuck out of the way. The Democratic electorate needs to throw them the fuck out, and start making a shopping list.

  • Universal Health Care. True universal healthcare; none of this ACA bullshit.

  • Securities tax. Own more than $10 million in stocks and bonds, we’re taking 1% of those shares every year, and slowly liquidating them at auction. Auctioned shares will comprise no more than 1% of total traded volume. You don’t get to just sit on those assets any more. You have to put them to work, where they will generate taxable income, or they will be taken from you.

If any member of the second estate has a problem with universal healthcare or a wealth tax, 18th century France came up with the solution.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

If they’re holding us back, why do we need them. How are they in our way? Why don’t we just take the party from them or make our own with blackjack, hookers, and abortion if it’s so easy to win?

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points

The democrat answer is always to blame & shame the voters, leftists & progressives for their losses.

But what democrats won’t ever do is represent the interests of the people, they can’t. Democrats take bribes from rich donors who have interests that conflict with the voters.

Voters want universal healthcare, rich donors do not. Voters want free college, rich donors do not. Voters want the genocide in Gaza to end, rich donors do not. There’s many more examples, but democrats have to walk a tight rope.

If the democrats cater to the voters, they lose the rich donors. If they cater to the rich donors, they lose the voters. So democrats have been pandering to their rich donors while pushing optics as if they support the voters. But it’s always a lie.

When democrats take power, they implement miniscule change that expires or is easily reversed to appease the voters while still doing the bidding of the donors. But as the voter’s need for change grows, the less that democrats want to win.

Winning means being in charge, which means pressure to implement change. Rich donors don’t want that change, so democrats deliberately lose.

Democrats would rather be a minority party that soaks up donations rather than be the majority party and have to actually govern and fix things.

permalink
report
reply
4 points
*

I wish more people understood this fact, especially when it comes to voting.

The only way to truly fix this is to change campaign finance laws, Citizens United, and all the other supporting cases that led to the situation we are in.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

This entire comment is just pure delusional? You’re claiming Dems never want to fix anything?

Tell me, who the last Republican to leave office with a good economy according to the general public? And we’ll start there.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

This entire comment is just pure delusional? You’re claiming Dems never want to fix anything?

No. Please work on your reading comprehension skills.

permalink
report
parent
reply

politics

!politics@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to “Mom! He’s bugging me!” and “I’m not touching you!” Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That’s all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

Community stats

  • 9.9K

    Monthly active users

  • 12K

    Posts

  • 213K

    Comments