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.
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.