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Vincent Oriedo, a biotechnology scientist, had just such a question. What lessons have been learned, he asked, from Harris’s defeat in this vital swing county in a crucial battleground state that voted for Joe Biden four years ago, and how are the Democrats applying them?

“They did not answer the question,” he said.

“It tells me that they haven’t learned the lessons and they have their inner state of denial. I’ve been paying careful attention to the influencers within the Democratic party. Their discussions have centred around, ‘If only we messaged better, if only we had a better candidate, if only we did all these superficial things.’ There is really a lack of understanding that they are losing their base, losing constituencies they are taking for granted.”

“We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests. They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs.”

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[-] pyrflie@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Dems will keep losing until they figure out which demographics they can't afford to betray.

They thought LGBT and women would buy the last election and betrayed Unions, Nortenios, and Muslims. Like it wouldn't have a consequence, then they lost the southwest (Nortenio) and midwest (Union and Muslim).

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[-] moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 months ago

Don't worry too much, it's the same in France. A whole side of the politic is in denial.

[-] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Neoliberalism is done, it's fucked. The liberals wanted and thought they could pull another Bernie and people would just go with it, fuck that.

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[-] makyo@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Honestly I think this article is completely wrong. I'm convinced modern elections are 100% based on vibes and so better messaging and a better candidate would have meant a great deal.

But to add to that - Trump and his idiot base had been messaging and memeing for four years starting with Covid and masks and then inflation and 'I did that' stickers of Biden at the gas pump. Biden had barely done any messaging even up until the point he dropped out which, in the social media era, should be obviously big fucking warning signs of a losing campaign.

EDIT - which is not to say I don't think the Dems need to change in other ways because they absolutely do.

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[-] futatorius@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago

We need to organize. The Democrats aren't going to be part of it, because, with very few exceptions, they're useless. Let's hope at least they stay out of the way instead of doing like Fetterman and kissing the ring.

[-] kreskin@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Fetterman kissed the ring on tv because of the demographics of his district made it more profitable to do it in public. The rest of the centrist dems will do it in private. There will always be symbolic pushback on things, but when dem votes are needed by corporate or aipac they will magically materialize as if out of thin air. They always do.

When the repubs do their promised constitutional changes, watch, the dems will get in line behind them, bellyaching the whole time about how outraged they are. There will be symbolic responsible senator, to blame the entire dem "collapse" on. Probably Fetterman.

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

While that's true, choosing to vote for Trump, a third-party, or not at all is like saying, "I don't like this ham sandwich and I don't like my sandwich choices... so I'm going to eat this dog-turds-and-radioactive-glass-shards sandwich instead!"

This country is fucked.

Edit: Rather than respond below to every comment, thought I'd clarify a few things here.

  1. I never said Democrats didn't fuck up. They certainly did.
  2. But - and this is important - we can't ignore the roles that racism, sexism, and above all misinformation played. To pretend there was none, and that vast swaths of the electorate didn't fall for it, would be disingenuous.

Democrats have moved to the right, and hurt themselves doing so. That is true. But they are still objectively superior to Republicans in every conceivable way. People who voted Republican voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces party because they were angry about Democrats being imperfect, and their faces will be eaten.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 5 points 5 months ago

If only someone, or a group of like minded thinkers, had predicted this exact social course and offered another course that actually has ideological solutions for capital interests fucking over everything in their quest for more money and power!

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[-] sumguyonline@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Just look at the responses, complete denial. The american people overwhelmingly didn't want kamala, the democrats thought they could pull another Bernie and we would just do what they wanted. No, it doesn't work that way, and no they haven't learned their lesson. They won't so long as they retain a modicum of power. Democrats and Republicans are the problem.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

“The things Harris said, like she was going to give $25,000 for people to buy their first home, there were a lot of people said she was giving their money away to people who didn’t deserve it. It cost her votes. We were trying to tell her that.”

What's the answer to that? On the face of it, this says that the electorate don't want public money spent on helping other people who need help. How do you achieve anything other than conservatism with such an electorate? The only thing I can think is that you have to promise to help more of the electorate, and that the money will be come from the very rich. In other words, the only counter to conservatism is a commitment to actual wealth redistribution, and to going up against the selfish interests of the super-rich. That's not yet even socialism, but it's still further to the left that the Democratic Party is willing to go. For now, its leadership would rather lose elections to fascists than challenge billionaires.

[-] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 months ago

A few conservative pundits attacked it from the "undeserving" angle. The actual base didn't give a damn. The actual base thought it was a useless and tone-deaf figleaf of a policy. It was a wonkish policy only a milquetoast centrist could love - a market subsidy that had a long litany of provisos and qualifications. And one that economists stated would just serve to bid house prices up even higher.

The voters didn't reject progressive wealth redistribution. They rejected half-baked meaningless gestures.

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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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