I don't get why it's hard to comprehend. By becoming (even) more conservative, more "R", they betrayed (even more of) their base. Why would timid Republicans want to vote for traitors pandering to them?
Not only that, if she's not targeting Democrats they won't feel motivated to vote for her. Yes, yes, fascism was the other option. But people are not smart, and I say that as a people.
Shit I was saying when Biden was still running and I got crucified for it.
As you shift to the right you leave your base behind, ignoring a growing, left swinging faction within the party is going to lead to outcomes like this. Working class people all have the same problems, and one party says they'll do something about it. They're lying, people who are generally smarter and paying attention know they're lying, but that's not most people.
The other party has had a chance, and failed to do anything to alleviate the concerns of the working class. Regardless of the circumstances, or their actual ability to affect change. And they spent the entire election cycle trying to curry votes from a dedicated base instead of getting voters excited about something.
Swing left, swing hard. Become the unhinged leftist the other side is already accusing you of being.
Its a two party system, why would anyone think being a bit more like the other guy be a good idea?
Why would someone pick knockoff awful when the name brand is right there?
Democrats would prefer to lose than become more progressive because the rich and powerful still benefit from Republicans winning or Democrats winning as long as Democrats are still centre-right wing.
As soon as Democrats move left the elites start to lose so Democrats don't.
And we won't have another election again, so these democratic voters who stayed home have denied themselves any other opportunities to right this ship.
It was the stupidest of ideas. Republicans were never going to vote for her in any numbers. She was all about gun control, she personally owned the 12 million border crossings, she had all those defund the police sound bites from her earlier years, and she couldn't effectively separate herself from the difficult economy for middle and low earners - while failing to communicate that she even cared about the common man's plight or would try to help it. Even her proposed tax plan raised taxes on lower middle class, at least the charts I saw (including here on Lemmy). And Republicans have seen four years of Trump and think all the Nazi and "all Republicans are racist" talk is literally the stupidest thing on the earth. Abortion was all Dems really had, and although lots of Republicans are pro-choice, Trump had promised to veto a national abortion ban (for whatever that's worth).
I remember when Democrats were for the working people. They need to stop being "We're not the Nazis"and start telling us who they are. But I don't think they want to tell us who they are. They're no longer the party of the working man, they're the party of corporate interest and global governance, and they're also almost as authoritarian as the right. Maybe the collapse of the Democrat party will result in the birth of an actual socialist party in the US. We've seen major party changes in the past. Will it happen again, soon?
Yes. When you abandon the left, they don't vote for you. This is what Clinton did too
They have clearly internalized the pervasive trope that leftists will vote for them, because they have no other choice, so the only thing that matters to convince is the right. Looks like they calculated wrong.
Obama got people excited about healthcare reform. Biden got people excited about student debt relief. Clinton tried to get people excited about a female president and Harris centered her campaign around running against Trump.
Social programs get people excited.
Biden got people excited about student debt relief.
This is not why Biden got elected. Trump so badly mishandled Covid that everyone left of center demanded change.
Every time
My take on this is that the DNC has never understood that to win the presidency in the last 20 years you need to be a fire brand.
I think this stared in 2008 with Obama who won I believe because he fired up the base with great speeches about hope and change. It didn't really happen, BUT the man knew how to give a speech. That got people inspired to do something and they voted.
Bernie was another fire brand - told it like it was and it appealed to a large population.
trump won using the same idea, but just the opposite of hope and change yet it worked. It tapped into a visceral and deep frustration that this country has left them behind.
The modern view of the American president to the population is less of a wonky politician and more of a cheerleader for big ideas, even if those ideas are abhorrent and exceedingly horrifying.
Harris just wasn't the person to pull this off, she was too wonky and it felt like the entire campaign was playing the old card of "we are not trump" Instead if they really wanted to win they would have found ( 2 years ago) a feisty out spoken progressive leaning firebrand that would have inspired people to vote for something better.
The only reason that (bland) Biden won was because of how badly trump fucked up the Covid response.
I think when she was announced as the candidate, she fired up the base just fine. She was different.
Then she spent the rest of the campaign reassuring people that nothing would change, pissing away that enthusiasm.
One of the frustrations I had was her solution to the housing problem was to just build more houses and give out some money. Sure great, but what I wanted to hear, and I think many other also wanted to hear, was her talking about corporate hording of housing and what she would do about that situation. But she just ignored it completely and so did Biden.
I think instead if she came out swinging against corporate greed, even if she actually did nothing about it, would have given her more votes.
My one hope out of this is that the massive swing to the right will be countered with more vocal progressives.
She didn't even really have a plan to build more houses, just some subsidies that wouldn't put a dent in the problem. She should have proposed something ambitious that people could get excited about. The crazy thing is Biden had some big ambitious policies that he actudlly enacted like the Inflation Reduction Act that dwarf anything Kamala campaigned on. It's the opposite of a winning approach that sells the stars and delivers the moon.
Exactly. "I'm not trump" barely got Biden in when trump was the incumbent with covid running rampant. It didn't work for Clinton in 2016 and unsurprisingly it didn't work for Harris in 2024. The level of incompetence at the DNC really makes me think the actual goal is to prevent our politics/country from shifting to the left at any cost.
My feeling is that once the DNC starts to acknowledge the progressive ideas then they open the flood gates to challengers to their (limited) power.
The Dems also need to get it through their skulls that it’s not just trump. The problem was present in McConnell and Gingrich. We need multiple parties willing to work together for the good of all Americans. Unfortunately the democrats are idiots with the policies of a quite reasonable right wing and the republicans are fascists who have spent 30 years rejecting their own ideas when said by democrats
Everyone needs to let them know how strongly this article is nailing it.
Done. And threatened to not vote for them next time
Based on them already attacking Bernie, who sucked up to them so hard this last year, I doubt they're going to listen to anyone's opinion if it doesn't also come with millions of dollars
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
Also explains their fundraising campaigns
I'm on my knees begging you to just give us money
Michael Scott
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