I don’t really think that there’s a clear coalition that’s different enough to warrant the massive undertaking (and it is a massive undertaking) of trying to start a new party from scratch.
To go for a more progressive coalition - and make no mistake, a more progressive coalition is most popular with white college educated liberals, not minorities - does not seem to have a strong argument for itself considering that even as it stands now, most Dem voters want the party to either remain as is, or become more right-wing. Vile as that is.
In the media, as opposed to amongst political junkies like us, the Dems are already strongly associated with minority issues, and it is overwhelmingly not minorities which have failed to turn out in recent elections for Dems, but white middle and working class voters. Minorities, including in the most recent election, have been the staunchest supporters of the Dems and their most reliable voting bloc both in terms of turnout and in the terms of percentage of the vote gained. The Dems, for that matter, abandoned the working class in the 90s, it’s true, but despite moving back towards a more pro-labor position in the 30 years since, has not meaningfully regained working-class votes. This is not purely a Dem issue - all across the developed world, pro-worker policies and worker support have been increasingly decoupled from electoral results.
The sad truth is that I don’t know that there is a solution, in terms of forging or rebalancing current coalitions. IF, and I would like to emphasize that this is a very uncomfortable if, we still have free and fair elections in the coming years, I don’t think that there is a different coalition possible that would put us in a place better, polling-wise, than the margin-of-error victories we’ve had the past decade-and-a-half.
The promise of strong leadership is a nice idea, but the issue is twofold here - first, that, if the primary issue is lack of strong leadership in a party, that is still generally less of a disadvantage than building the vast political apparatus in a country of our size for a nationally-viable party from scratch. Second, that guaranteeing strong leadership is nearly impossible - the ability to convince people you’re a strong leader, and the ability to lead well, have very little overlap and very few ways to discern the difference until they’re already in the driver’s-seat and returning results of one sort or another.
Please don’t mistake this as me saying that there cannot be a third-party movement which has some form of success. Both third-parties as a threat/negotiating tactics, and third-parties as a potential replacement for one of the two parties, are viable options to work at, at this point in time. But at the end of the day, I think the most viable option is to do what the Tea Party did to the GOP. Leadership is fragile. Easily replaced. Organized and motivated, beyond a simple voicing of grievances or enthusiasm for a single candidate, factions can take over and steer the parties to which they belong. But it requires patience and sustained activity, neither of which the lynchpin of non-moderate voters in the Dem Party, young voters, are good at. It took the Tea Party 6 years to overtake the old guard of the GOP, and even then it was a near-run thing. And only now, some 15 years later, is the takeover complete.
The Dems must move left - for the good of the country. But moving left will also not deliver the Dems electoral success. We can and should perform that takeover, but it also should be understood that a suddenly-progressive full-throated Dem Party will not result in a string of clear victories. The voters most in need of convincing, and most capable of being convinced, white working and middle-class voters (and increasingly, Hispanic voters of the same economic positions whose voting patterns become more similar with white voters every passing year), simply are not going to respond to sound left-wing economic policy. Nor, for that matter, will they respond much to sound or unsound right-wing economic policy. They only listen to promises, in the form of sound-bites, and only offer support or opposition insofar as the vagaries of their own economic situations allow for it - as filtered through their favorite news org, of course. Since news orgs get more views from FUD than rational analysis or positivity, and since people are notoriously bad at judging trends and time, it will almost always be a backlash against whatever policy was most recently implemented. And since it is much easier to tear things down and sabotage them than to implement them, this almost always benefits conservatives.
Until that fundamental civic detachment is fixed, no amount of new coalitions, candidates, or parties will bring the American left reliable electoral victory, beyond the fucking coin flip that the Dem Party offers now. And to spit out a lot of blood, sweat, and tears just to end up at Square 1 will disillusion a lot of the folks involved in it.
To go for a more progressive coalition - and make no mistake, a more progressive coalition is most popular with white college educated liberals, not minorities - does not seem to have a strong argument for itself considering that even as it stands now, most Dem voters want the party to either remain as is, or become more right-wing. Vile as that is.
Are you sure about that? If that’s true then American democracy is frankly hopeless, but the only evidence I’ve seen for these claims is Democrat leadership statements that I haven’t seen backed up by evidence. From what I know progressive policies polled without being explicitly labeled as such tend to get broad support from all demographics and across the political spectrum. For example here’s a poll about universal healthcare. That aside there’s no need to restrict your sight to Dem voters when you’re trying to build a new party; you can go after independents, non-voters and even Republicans if doing that won’t dilute your platform.
In the media, as opposed to amongst political junkies like us, the Dems are already strongly associated with minority issues,
Among white people, not among minorities themselves. That’s why I kept using the word “fight”; the DNC is pro-minorities but lacks the spine and economic policy to actually do any good for them.
and it is overwhelmingly not minorities which have failed to turn out in recent elections for Dems, but white middle and working class voters.
Many of those are dedicated Republican voters who should be excluded from the calculation entirely. If you’ll go after those voters, it should be exclusively through media efforts without compromising on your core platform, because otherwise you’ll repeat the same mistake as the Dems.
Minorities, including in the most recent election, have been the staunchest supporters of the Dems and their most reliable voting bloc both in terms of turnout and in the terms of percentage of the vote gained.
Yes, but Dem support among minorities has been falling and falling hard.
The promise of strong leadership is a nice idea, but the issue is twofold here - first, that, if the primary issue is lack of strong leadership in a party, that is still generally less of a disadvantage than building the vast political apparatus in a country of our size for a nationally-viable party from scratch.
If that was the only problem then maybe, but the issue is the triple whammy of Dem leadership: Their economic policy is horrible, they lack the spine to do much of anything and they’ll fight you to the death if you try to change that. Any one—or even two—of these alone would’ve been solvable, but with all three it’s easier to just start from scratch. The the pre-existent party apparatus and brand recognition are very attractive, but the price you’ll pay is a bunch of gerontocrats who will keep demanding concessions so they keep you in the party and giving absolutely nothing in return, which among other things will lose you legitimacy with your base (see: Bernie and AOC) while dampening the speed of expansion of both your political base and footprint within the party. Hell, if they’re successful they just might be able to take enough of you to their side to permanently cripple your movement.
Second, that guaranteeing strong leadership is nearly impossible - the ability to convince people you’re a strong leader, and the ability to lead well, have very little overlap and very few ways to discern the difference until they’re already in the driver’s-seat and returning results of one sort or another.
It’s very easy to provide stronger leadership than the DNC. I mean they passed that godawful budget how many days ago? Just not playing yourself in favor of the enemy is enough for a start, and most sane people should be able to guarantee that. Also you should be producing results through the process of building up your base since you won’t win the whole government all at once. That’s what I meant by saying that trying to take over the DNC will lose you legitimacy with your base; the process of achieving national recognition should give you enough of a track record for people to know what kind of operation you’re running.
Aaand I hit the character limit so I’ll reply to myself with the rest of this.
Are you sure about that? If that’s true then American democracy is frankly hopeless, but the only evidence I’ve seen for these claims is Democrat leadership statements that I haven’t seen backed up by evidence.
From what I know progressive policies polled without being explicitly labeled as such tend to get broad support from all demographics and across the political spectrum. For example here’s a poll about universal healthcare.
Which should point out how useless polling on policy is for predicting electoral support. People will say they support a policy, but the moment it’s actually proposed, find some little detail to justify to themselves why they shouldn’t support it when it could actually happen.
Sadly, this is why party support is far more useful for predicting electoral results. Including of ballot initiatives.
That aside there’s no need to restrict your sight to Dem voters when you’re trying to build a new party; you can go after independents, non-voters and even Republicans if doing that won’t dilute your platform.
Dems form the leftmost demographic of the American electorate. And polls of independents continually and repeatedly confirm that.
You’re not going to get better numbers for progressive policy looking outside of the Dem Party. If your view is that a progressive party is the way forward, and can attract a large number of people, to the point of challenging the current two-party system, you have to square that with the facts, which would seem difficult.
Among white people, not among minorities themselves.
Would you be open to evidence challenging this?
Many of those are dedicated Republican voters who should be excluded from the calculation entirely. If you’ll go after those voters, it should be exclusively through media efforts without compromising on your core platform, because otherwise you’ll repeat the same mistake as the Dems.
I’m not saying we should ‘go after’ those voters. I’m saying those are primarily the votes the Dems have lost in the past ~30 years.
Yes, but Dem support among minorities has been falling and falling hard.
Yet as pointed out by your own source, 2020 had some of the strongest Black support on record for the Dems. You point to a systemic problem inherent in the basis of the party itself. If so, we should see a decline from whenever you think is most appropriate to peg the main change at; instead, we see a sharp drop without movement towards the problems you point as plaguing the party (correctly point at as plaguing, in my opinion, but incorrectly weighting their importance), and, indeed, despite moving left considerably in the past ten years thanks to the influence of Bernie and Berniecrats.
The the pre-existent party apparatus and brand recognition are very attractive, but the price you’ll pay is a bunch of gerontocrats who will keep demanding concessions so they keep you in the party and giving absolutely nothing in return, which among other things will lose you legitimacy with your base (see: Bernie and AOC) while dampening the speed of expansion of both your political base and footprint within the party.
Considering that the DSA rescinded its endorsement of AOC over [checks notes] acknowledging antisemitism, and that Bernie’s reputation was strong for some 30 years, I’m gonna go and hazard that the machinations of The Party™ are not the primary culprit here.
It’s very easy to provide stronger leadership than the DNC. I mean they passed that godawful budget how many days ago? Just not playing yourself in favor of the enemy is enough for a start, and most sane people should be able to guarantee that.
God, if only getting and keeping sane people in leadership was that easy.
We absolutely need a massacre (metaphorically, for the sake of my personal FBI Agent) of Dem leadership, but whether starting from a clean slate entirely, or trying to revitalize the Dem Party, there’s no way to guarantee good leadership will replace them.
Also you should be producing results through the process of building up your base since you won’t win the whole government all at once. That’s what I meant by saying that trying to take over the DNC will lose you legitimacy with your base; the process of achieving national recognition should give you enough of a track record for people to know what kind of operation you’re running.
That’s not how Americans vote or how they recognize success, man. If it was, our situation would be considerably easier.
Okay what the shit democrats? That’s definitely one hurdle to clear no matter what direction you do end up taking, but I believe (with no evidence at all other than faith in humanity and an appeal to Bernie) that it can be cleared.
Which should point out how useless polling on policy is for predicting electoral support. People will say they support a policy, but the moment it’s actually proposed, find some little detail to justify to themselves why they shouldn’t support it when it could actually happen.
That’s… fair. However Bernie for example was able to get nationwide support—sometimes even from conservatives who would later vote for Trump—by running on progressive policy, so there’s reason to think that policy not being linked to electoral success is at least partially an issue of how the DNC operates and campaigns rather than an inherent property of the American electorate. Also if you throw a wide enough net you should be able to make them vote for one policy even if they don’t like the others, for example promising pro-Palestine policy for young college students and liberals, police reform for poor black people, union support for the working class, etc. Theoretically it should be possible to get around the culture war by promising to make real change in people’s lives such that they’ll reluctantly accept the other stuff.
Dems form the leftmost demographic of the American electorate. And polls of independents continually and repeatedly confirm that.
You’re not going to get better numbers for progressive policy looking outside of the Dem Party. If your view is that a progressive party is the way forward, and can attract a large number of people, to the point of challenging the current two-party system, you have to square that with the facts, which would seem difficult.
Fair enough. However, by a simple appeal to the normal distribution it should be possible to count on some left-leaning independent support, since independents are more than just centrists. Most Democrats (which either want progressive policy or have nobody else to vote for) + left leaning independents + most minorities (think 2008 Obama numbers) should be enough for a coalition. The minorities part is important because minorities have significantly less turnout than white people and they all lean left.
Would you be open to evidence challenging this?
The poll I linked has options to filter by race, gender and age; I should’ve mentioned that. You can play around with it, but it seems to be black > hispanic > other > white in descending order of support, and all demographics show more than 50% support as of November 2023. Edit: If you have evidence showing otherwise then okay sure, but I think the poll’s results are pretty clear-cut.
Yet as pointed out by your own source, 2020 had some of the strongest Black support on record for the Dems. You point to a systemic problem inherent in the basis of the party itself. If so, we should see a decline from whenever you think is most appropriate to peg the main change at; instead, we see a sharp drop without movement towards the problems you point as plaguing the party (correctly point at as plaguing, in my opinion, but incorrectly weighting their importance), and, indeed,
I’d peg the main change at Obama for building the Obama coalition under his platform for hope and change, which then proceeded to slowly disintegrate. 2020 was an outlier because Biden to an extent appropriated some of the policies that got Obama elected and Bernie widespread support, and partly because Trump fucked up his handling of Covid so hard. Black people are also the most pro-Democrat demographic in the country for historical reasons. I can’t for the life of me find voting data for minorities in general by election, or for black people, but I did find this for Hispanics: https://www.gzeromedia.com/gzero-north/graphic-truth-latino-voters-and-votes-since-1980.
despite moving left considerably in the past ten years thanks to the influence of Bernie and Berniecrats.
The party didn’t move left. They dabbled in leftwing politics once in 2020 (which won them the election) and that’s it; the general party platform has either mostly stayed the same or shifted to the right depending on the issue (see: most lethal military in the world).
Considering that the DSA rescinded its endorsement of AOC over [checks notes] acknowledging antisemitism, and that Bernie’s reputation was strong for some 30 years, I’m gonna go and hazard that the machinations of The Party™ are not the primary culprit here.
I looked up the AOC bit and it seems it was for meeting with Zionist lobbyists and voting for Zionist bills in the House. You might disagree with the decision, but these are very valid reasons to rescind an endorsement. Supporting Israel’s right to exist is a dealbreaker on its own, (edit:) and exactly what I was talking about. I very much doubt AOC would’ve supported these bills had she been with the DSA rather than the DNC.
We absolutely need a massacre (metaphorically, for the sake of my personal FBI Agent) of Dem leadership, but whether starting from a clean slate entirely, or trying to revitalize the Dem Party, there’s no way to guarantee good leadership will replace them.
Again, the standard we’re working with isn’t “good”; it’s “not absolutely horrible and spineless”. At least at the start you can guarantee that the leadership won’t be absolutely horrible and spineless, because that leadership is in part literally you.
Also note that when I say strong leadership I don’t necessarily mean one guy or a few guys coming to save the common man from the woes of fascism; this leadership can just as easily be a coalition of grassroots organizations or any other form of organized resistance.
That’s not how Americans vote or how they recognize success, man. If it was, our situation would be considerably easier.
It’s how the core activist base recognizes success. Those will then spread your ideas among low and medium-information voters.
Please don’t mistake this as me saying that there cannot be a third-party movement which has some form of success. Both third-parties as a threat/negotiating tactics, and third-parties as a potential replacement for one of the two parties, are viable options to work at, at this point in time. But at the end of the day, I think the most viable option is to do what the Tea Party did to the GOP. Leadership is fragile. Easily replaced. Organized and motivated, beyond a simple voicing of grievances or enthusiasm for a single candidate, factions can take over and steer the parties to which they belong. But it requires patience and sustained activity, neither of which the lynchpin of non-moderate voters in the Dem Party, young voters, are good at. It took the Tea Party 6 years to overtake the old guard of the GOP, and even then it was a near-run thing. And only now, some 15 years later, is the takeover complete.
An internal takeover—if possible—would be ideal, yes. However, the reason the Tea Party was so successful was because the GOP was open to change and the Tea Party had billionaire money behind them. Taking over a party that’s hostile to change without near-infinite money is a whole different beast. The inability of young voters to patiently and sustainably act themselves out of a paper bag is also a big problem, but I’d say part of that is lack of enthusiasm with the political system. Rather than the Tea Party I’ll talk MAGA because frankly I was way too young to know anything politics during the age of the tea party. The left’s equivalent of Trump is/was Bernie, but let’s face it: Is Bernie far to the left as Trump is far to the right? Bernie’s tendency to fall in with the establishment heavily contrasts with Trump’s willingness to say screw the establishment and say whatever he wants about whoever he wants. Now if I’m wrong and young voters are indeed incapable of patient and sustained activity even with strong leadership (which Bernie has been trying to be but is not), then America is screwed either way because moderates can’t fight fascism.
They only listen to promises, in the form of sound-bites, and only offer support or opposition insofar as the vagaries of their own economic situations allow for it - as filtered through their favorite news org, of course.
Very true, so make those promises. Say you’ll make healthcare and energy dirt cheap, tax the rich and give that money to the poor and middle class, expand social welfare, make it so people won’t need expensive cars to get around, etc etc. The right will hate your guts for it, but giving a shit about what the right thinks is a recipe for failure.
Until that fundamental civic detachment is fixed, no amount of new coalitions, candidates, or parties will bring the American left reliable electoral victory, beyond the fucking coin flip that the Dem Party offers now. And to spit out a lot of blood, sweat, and tears just to end up at Square 1 will disillusion a lot of the folks involved in it.
Yeah absolutely. I guess my fundamental assumption going into this is that civic detachment can be fixed by the knowledge that politics is important and can do good things for you rather than being a slew of lesser evils who promise to screw you slightly less than the other guy. I mean it works the other way so maybe?
An internal takeover—if possible—would be ideal, yes. However, the reason the Tea Party was so successful was because the GOP was open to change and the Tea Party had billionaire money behind them.
“the GOP was open to change”
I hear this line all the goddamn time, but it was just not fucking so. It was forced to accede to change by large amounts of its base demonstrating electoral activity, both in primaries and in the general, despite a desire to limit the radicals of their base from influence.
The billionaire money is correct, though.
Rather than the Tea Party I’ll talk MAGA because frankly I was way too young to know anything politics during the age of the tea party. The left’s equivalent of Trump is/was Bernie, but let’s face it: Is Bernie far to the left as Trump is far to the right?
Their respective distances measured relative to the average American voter? Yes.
Bernie’s tendency to fall in with the establishment heavily contrasts with Trump’s willingness to say screw the establishment and say whatever he wants about whoever he wants.
what
Christ, man, do not tell me that’s what you think strong leadership is.
Now if I’m wrong and young voters are indeed incapable of patient and sustained activity even with strong leadership (which Bernie has been trying to be but is not), then America is screwed either way because moderates can’t fight fascism.
Looking for a leader to save us is exactly why we’re in this fucking mess, man.
Very true, so make those promises. Say you’ll make healthcare and energy dirt cheap, tax the rich and give that money to the poor and middle class, expand social welfare, make it so people won’t need expensive cars to get around, etc etc. The right will hate your guts for it, but giving a shit about what the right thinks is a recipe for failure.
Okay, the next step is - you’re asked ‘how?’
And unlike the GOP base, the Dem base is not satisfied with “It’ll work, trust me.”
You’re left with “Losing your base who thinks you’re a liar and/or a shitwit” or “Losing the swing voters who will get bored and tune out of any real explanation that’s solid, or else find the soundbite against it more compelling than that egghead stuff”.
Yeah absolutely. I guess my fundamental assumption going into this is that civic detachment can be fixed by the knowledge that politics is important and can do good things for you rather than being a slew of lesser evils who promise to screw you slightly less than the other guy. I mean it works the other way so maybe?
The only way that works is by immense education on civic matters. The idea that the Dems just forgot to lie about being good is absurd. Many of the left-wing detractors on Lemmy, where the average commenter is more politically informed than the average voter couldn’t name jack fucking shit about the Dem platform in 2024.
Narratives are more powerful than facts, and certainly more powerful than party platforms.
I hear this line all the goddamn time, but it was just not fucking so. It was forced to accede to change by large amounts of its base demonstrating electoral activity, both in primaries and in the general, despite a desire to limit the radicals of their base from influence.
I mean they had their thumb on the primary a lot less than the DNC, at least. That’s why Trump made it to the general in 2016 rather than the GOP’s preferred candidate.
Their respective distances measured relative to the average American voter? Yes.
Distance from the center is irrelevant; the relevant quality here is position on the absolute left-right scale, with socialism/anarchy on one end and fascism on the other (the center does not exist in this view, as that is inherently relative). And I have to say, Trump is a lot more fascist than Bernie is anarchist. That’s the problem here; Trump fought with his political establishment and won, while Bernie and the rest of the American left didn’t.
Christ, man, do not tell me that’s what you think strong leadership is.
Yes and no. Trump is the ultimate representation of the base desires of his constituents, a man who “grabs them by the pussy”, calls Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals and publicly calls for a ban on Muslims. He also says whatever the fuck he wants—which happens to be what his constituents want to hear—whenever the fuck he wants, something something quite part out loud. These are traits of strong leadership that Trump possesses and nobody on the left does. Taken out of the general insanity of Trump, they’d be willingness to be radical and stand up for your principles. Of course it’s not like Trump possesses these qualities; he’s just a narcissist, but this and that are different problems.
Okay, the next step is - you’re asked ‘how?’
A public option (or single payer healthcare, depending on how radical you want to go), investment in renewables, tax laws and funding the IRS, investing in public transportation (point to NYC or similar for an example of that in action), respectively. The rationale behind a lot of leftwing policies is fundamentally very simple; the complexity comes from the execution, which low-information voters don’t care about and high-information voters will listen to long explanations for.
The idea that the Dems just forgot to lie about being good is absurd.
They didn’t; they simply lost the option to even lie about being good, because being good is antithetical to the desires of their donors.
Many of the left-wing detractors on Lemmy, where the average commenter is more politically informed than the average voter couldn’t name jack fucking shit about the Dem platform in 2024.
That’s because the Dem platform was just that bad. The Dems treated their own platform as irrelevant and almost completely focused on the democracy stuff without any action to back it up. The average Lemmy left-wing detractor could name the main points of the GOP platform, because the GOP is both better at building narratives and actually cares about their (absolutely horrible, to be clear) platform.
I don’t really think that there’s a clear coalition that’s different enough to warrant the massive undertaking (and it is a massive undertaking) of trying to start a new party from scratch.
To go for a more progressive coalition - and make no mistake, a more progressive coalition is most popular with white college educated liberals, not minorities - does not seem to have a strong argument for itself considering that even as it stands now, most Dem voters want the party to either remain as is, or become more right-wing. Vile as that is.
In the media, as opposed to amongst political junkies like us, the Dems are already strongly associated with minority issues, and it is overwhelmingly not minorities which have failed to turn out in recent elections for Dems, but white middle and working class voters. Minorities, including in the most recent election, have been the staunchest supporters of the Dems and their most reliable voting bloc both in terms of turnout and in the terms of percentage of the vote gained. The Dems, for that matter, abandoned the working class in the 90s, it’s true, but despite moving back towards a more pro-labor position in the 30 years since, has not meaningfully regained working-class votes. This is not purely a Dem issue - all across the developed world, pro-worker policies and worker support have been increasingly decoupled from electoral results.
The sad truth is that I don’t know that there is a solution, in terms of forging or rebalancing current coalitions. IF, and I would like to emphasize that this is a very uncomfortable if, we still have free and fair elections in the coming years, I don’t think that there is a different coalition possible that would put us in a place better, polling-wise, than the margin-of-error victories we’ve had the past decade-and-a-half.
The promise of strong leadership is a nice idea, but the issue is twofold here - first, that, if the primary issue is lack of strong leadership in a party, that is still generally less of a disadvantage than building the vast political apparatus in a country of our size for a nationally-viable party from scratch. Second, that guaranteeing strong leadership is nearly impossible - the ability to convince people you’re a strong leader, and the ability to lead well, have very little overlap and very few ways to discern the difference until they’re already in the driver’s-seat and returning results of one sort or another.
Please don’t mistake this as me saying that there cannot be a third-party movement which has some form of success. Both third-parties as a threat/negotiating tactics, and third-parties as a potential replacement for one of the two parties, are viable options to work at, at this point in time. But at the end of the day, I think the most viable option is to do what the Tea Party did to the GOP. Leadership is fragile. Easily replaced. Organized and motivated, beyond a simple voicing of grievances or enthusiasm for a single candidate, factions can take over and steer the parties to which they belong. But it requires patience and sustained activity, neither of which the lynchpin of non-moderate voters in the Dem Party, young voters, are good at. It took the Tea Party 6 years to overtake the old guard of the GOP, and even then it was a near-run thing. And only now, some 15 years later, is the takeover complete.
The Dems must move left - for the good of the country. But moving left will also not deliver the Dems electoral success. We can and should perform that takeover, but it also should be understood that a suddenly-progressive full-throated Dem Party will not result in a string of clear victories. The voters most in need of convincing, and most capable of being convinced, white working and middle-class voters (and increasingly, Hispanic voters of the same economic positions whose voting patterns become more similar with white voters every passing year), simply are not going to respond to sound left-wing economic policy. Nor, for that matter, will they respond much to sound or unsound right-wing economic policy. They only listen to promises, in the form of sound-bites, and only offer support or opposition insofar as the vagaries of their own economic situations allow for it - as filtered through their favorite news org, of course. Since news orgs get more views from FUD than rational analysis or positivity, and since people are notoriously bad at judging trends and time, it will almost always be a backlash against whatever policy was most recently implemented. And since it is much easier to tear things down and sabotage them than to implement them, this almost always benefits conservatives.
Until that fundamental civic detachment is fixed, no amount of new coalitions, candidates, or parties will bring the American left reliable electoral victory, beyond the fucking coin flip that the Dem Party offers now. And to spit out a lot of blood, sweat, and tears just to end up at Square 1 will disillusion a lot of the folks involved in it.
Wow that’s a lot.
Are you sure about that? If that’s true then American democracy is frankly hopeless, but the only evidence I’ve seen for these claims is Democrat leadership statements that I haven’t seen backed up by evidence. From what I know progressive policies polled without being explicitly labeled as such tend to get broad support from all demographics and across the political spectrum. For example here’s a poll about universal healthcare. That aside there’s no need to restrict your sight to Dem voters when you’re trying to build a new party; you can go after independents, non-voters and even Republicans if doing that won’t dilute your platform.
Among white people, not among minorities themselves. That’s why I kept using the word “fight”; the DNC is pro-minorities but lacks the spine and economic policy to actually do any good for them.
Many of those are dedicated Republican voters who should be excluded from the calculation entirely. If you’ll go after those voters, it should be exclusively through media efforts without compromising on your core platform, because otherwise you’ll repeat the same mistake as the Dems.
Yes, but Dem support among minorities has been falling and falling hard.
If that was the only problem then maybe, but the issue is the triple whammy of Dem leadership: Their economic policy is horrible, they lack the spine to do much of anything and they’ll fight you to the death if you try to change that. Any one—or even two—of these alone would’ve been solvable, but with all three it’s easier to just start from scratch. The the pre-existent party apparatus and brand recognition are very attractive, but the price you’ll pay is a bunch of gerontocrats who will keep demanding concessions so they keep you in the party and giving absolutely nothing in return, which among other things will lose you legitimacy with your base (see: Bernie and AOC) while dampening the speed of expansion of both your political base and footprint within the party. Hell, if they’re successful they just might be able to take enough of you to their side to permanently cripple your movement.
It’s very easy to provide stronger leadership than the DNC. I mean they passed that godawful budget how many days ago? Just not playing yourself in favor of the enemy is enough for a start, and most sane people should be able to guarantee that. Also you should be producing results through the process of building up your base since you won’t win the whole government all at once. That’s what I meant by saying that trying to take over the DNC will lose you legitimacy with your base; the process of achieving national recognition should give you enough of a track record for people to know what kind of operation you’re running.
Aaand I hit the character limit so I’ll reply to myself with the rest of this.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/656636/democrats-favor-party-moderation-past.aspx
Which should point out how useless polling on policy is for predicting electoral support. People will say they support a policy, but the moment it’s actually proposed, find some little detail to justify to themselves why they shouldn’t support it when it could actually happen.
Sadly, this is why party support is far more useful for predicting electoral results. Including of ballot initiatives.
Dems form the leftmost demographic of the American electorate. And polls of independents continually and repeatedly confirm that.
You’re not going to get better numbers for progressive policy looking outside of the Dem Party. If your view is that a progressive party is the way forward, and can attract a large number of people, to the point of challenging the current two-party system, you have to square that with the facts, which would seem difficult.
Would you be open to evidence challenging this?
I’m not saying we should ‘go after’ those voters. I’m saying those are primarily the votes the Dems have lost in the past ~30 years.
Yet as pointed out by your own source, 2020 had some of the strongest Black support on record for the Dems. You point to a systemic problem inherent in the basis of the party itself. If so, we should see a decline from whenever you think is most appropriate to peg the main change at; instead, we see a sharp drop without movement towards the problems you point as plaguing the party (correctly point at as plaguing, in my opinion, but incorrectly weighting their importance), and, indeed, despite moving left considerably in the past ten years thanks to the influence of Bernie and Berniecrats.
Considering that the DSA rescinded its endorsement of AOC over [checks notes] acknowledging antisemitism, and that Bernie’s reputation was strong for some 30 years, I’m gonna go and hazard that the machinations of The Party™ are not the primary culprit here.
God, if only getting and keeping sane people in leadership was that easy.
We absolutely need a massacre (metaphorically, for the sake of my personal FBI Agent) of Dem leadership, but whether starting from a clean slate entirely, or trying to revitalize the Dem Party, there’s no way to guarantee good leadership will replace them.
That’s not how Americans vote or how they recognize success, man. If it was, our situation would be considerably easier.
Okay what the shit democrats? That’s definitely one hurdle to clear no matter what direction you do end up taking, but I believe (with no evidence at all other than faith in humanity and an appeal to Bernie) that it can be cleared.
That’s… fair. However Bernie for example was able to get nationwide support—sometimes even from conservatives who would later vote for Trump—by running on progressive policy, so there’s reason to think that policy not being linked to electoral success is at least partially an issue of how the DNC operates and campaigns rather than an inherent property of the American electorate. Also if you throw a wide enough net you should be able to make them vote for one policy even if they don’t like the others, for example promising pro-Palestine policy for young college students and liberals, police reform for poor black people, union support for the working class, etc. Theoretically it should be possible to get around the culture war by promising to make real change in people’s lives such that they’ll reluctantly accept the other stuff.
Fair enough. However, by a simple appeal to the normal distribution it should be possible to count on some left-leaning independent support, since independents are more than just centrists. Most Democrats (which either want progressive policy or have nobody else to vote for) + left leaning independents + most minorities (think 2008 Obama numbers) should be enough for a coalition. The minorities part is important because minorities have significantly less turnout than white people and they all lean left.
The poll I linked has options to filter by race, gender and age; I should’ve mentioned that. You can play around with it, but it seems to be black > hispanic > other > white in descending order of support, and all demographics show more than 50% support as of November 2023. Edit: If you have evidence showing otherwise then okay sure, but I think the poll’s results are pretty clear-cut.
I’d peg the main change at Obama for building the Obama coalition under his platform for hope and change, which then proceeded to slowly disintegrate. 2020 was an outlier because Biden to an extent appropriated some of the policies that got Obama elected and Bernie widespread support, and partly because Trump fucked up his handling of Covid so hard. Black people are also the most pro-Democrat demographic in the country for historical reasons. I can’t for the life of me find voting data for minorities in general by election, or for black people, but I did find this for Hispanics: https://www.gzeromedia.com/gzero-north/graphic-truth-latino-voters-and-votes-since-1980.
The party didn’t move left. They dabbled in leftwing politics once in 2020 (which won them the election) and that’s it; the general party platform has either mostly stayed the same or shifted to the right depending on the issue (see: most lethal military in the world).
Continues below.
My stamina wrt this discussion has run out, but I want to thank you for the quality and civil debate.
I looked up the AOC bit and it seems it was for meeting with Zionist lobbyists and voting for Zionist bills in the House. You might disagree with the decision, but these are very valid reasons to rescind an endorsement. Supporting Israel’s right to exist is a dealbreaker on its own, (edit:) and exactly what I was talking about. I very much doubt AOC would’ve supported these bills had she been with the DSA rather than the DNC.
Again, the standard we’re working with isn’t “good”; it’s “not absolutely horrible and spineless”. At least at the start you can guarantee that the leadership won’t be absolutely horrible and spineless, because that leadership is in part literally you.
Also note that when I say strong leadership I don’t necessarily mean one guy or a few guys coming to save the common man from the woes of fascism; this leadership can just as easily be a coalition of grassroots organizations or any other form of organized resistance.
It’s how the core activist base recognizes success. Those will then spread your ideas among low and medium-information voters.
An internal takeover—if possible—would be ideal, yes. However, the reason the Tea Party was so successful was because the GOP was open to change and the Tea Party had billionaire money behind them. Taking over a party that’s hostile to change without near-infinite money is a whole different beast. The inability of young voters to patiently and sustainably act themselves out of a paper bag is also a big problem, but I’d say part of that is lack of enthusiasm with the political system. Rather than the Tea Party I’ll talk MAGA because frankly I was way too young to know anything politics during the age of the tea party. The left’s equivalent of Trump is/was Bernie, but let’s face it: Is Bernie far to the left as Trump is far to the right? Bernie’s tendency to fall in with the establishment heavily contrasts with Trump’s willingness to say screw the establishment and say whatever he wants about whoever he wants. Now if I’m wrong and young voters are indeed incapable of patient and sustained activity even with strong leadership (which Bernie has been trying to be but is not), then America is screwed either way because moderates can’t fight fascism.
Very true, so make those promises. Say you’ll make healthcare and energy dirt cheap, tax the rich and give that money to the poor and middle class, expand social welfare, make it so people won’t need expensive cars to get around, etc etc. The right will hate your guts for it, but giving a shit about what the right thinks is a recipe for failure.
Yeah absolutely. I guess my fundamental assumption going into this is that civic detachment can be fixed by the knowledge that politics is important and can do good things for you rather than being a slew of lesser evils who promise to screw you slightly less than the other guy. I mean it works the other way so maybe?
“the GOP was open to change”
I hear this line all the goddamn time, but it was just not fucking so. It was forced to accede to change by large amounts of its base demonstrating electoral activity, both in primaries and in the general, despite a desire to limit the radicals of their base from influence.
The billionaire money is correct, though.
Their respective distances measured relative to the average American voter? Yes.
what
Christ, man, do not tell me that’s what you think strong leadership is.
Looking for a leader to save us is exactly why we’re in this fucking mess, man.
Okay, the next step is - you’re asked ‘how?’
And unlike the GOP base, the Dem base is not satisfied with “It’ll work, trust me.”
You’re left with “Losing your base who thinks you’re a liar and/or a shitwit” or “Losing the swing voters who will get bored and tune out of any real explanation that’s solid, or else find the soundbite against it more compelling than that egghead stuff”.
The only way that works is by immense education on civic matters. The idea that the Dems just forgot to lie about being good is absurd. Many of the left-wing detractors on Lemmy, where the average commenter is more politically informed than the average voter couldn’t name jack fucking shit about the Dem platform in 2024.
Narratives are more powerful than facts, and certainly more powerful than party platforms.
I mean they had their thumb on the primary a lot less than the DNC, at least. That’s why Trump made it to the general in 2016 rather than the GOP’s preferred candidate.
Distance from the center is irrelevant; the relevant quality here is position on the absolute left-right scale, with socialism/anarchy on one end and fascism on the other (the center does not exist in this view, as that is inherently relative). And I have to say, Trump is a lot more fascist than Bernie is anarchist. That’s the problem here; Trump fought with his political establishment and won, while Bernie and the rest of the American left didn’t.
Yes and no. Trump is the ultimate representation of the base desires of his constituents, a man who “grabs them by the pussy”, calls Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals and publicly calls for a ban on Muslims. He also says whatever the fuck he wants—which happens to be what his constituents want to hear—whenever the fuck he wants, something something quite part out loud. These are traits of strong leadership that Trump possesses and nobody on the left does. Taken out of the general insanity of Trump, they’d be willingness to be radical and stand up for your principles. Of course it’s not like Trump possesses these qualities; he’s just a narcissist, but this and that are different problems.
A public option (or single payer healthcare, depending on how radical you want to go), investment in renewables, tax laws and funding the IRS, investing in public transportation (point to NYC or similar for an example of that in action), respectively. The rationale behind a lot of leftwing policies is fundamentally very simple; the complexity comes from the execution, which low-information voters don’t care about and high-information voters will listen to long explanations for.
They didn’t; they simply lost the option to even lie about being good, because being good is antithetical to the desires of their donors.
That’s because the Dem platform was just that bad. The Dems treated their own platform as irrelevant and almost completely focused on the democracy stuff without any action to back it up. The average Lemmy left-wing detractor could name the main points of the GOP platform, because the GOP is both better at building narratives and actually cares about their (absolutely horrible, to be clear) platform.