Democrats: “Understood. We must try harder to win over the center-right.”
Honestly, we should have seen it coming with all the “nostalgia” for the Good Old Days of GWB.
This was literally what the Harris campaign walked away saying.
And here I am nostalgic for the good ol days of Obama.
I do miss when my tax dollars got spent to keep American corporate greed from crashing the global economy, again, and merely continuing the neo-Crusades instead of escalating them.
That was a nice almost decade.
Clinton is the last era before the shit hit the fan.
Enron, 9.11, the mideast war series, 2008, etc.
“center right”:
I’ve been called center right but I wouldn’t describe myself so. I’m right and left. It balances in the center but most centrist positions are corporatist and authoritative, and I hate both. Man did this election ever suck. I’m always stoked for the primaries and hoping to get a free thinker in the mix but this year we didn’t even get primaries.
“Nothing will fundamentally change” + “there is not a thing that comes to mind.”
Two killer statements.
To be fair Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” is a lot better with context. “There’s not a thing that comes to mind” is fucking inexcusable though.
To be fair Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” is a lot better with context.
To be fair, it became clear over the course of 4 years that it was correct at face value.
One of the biggest unforced failures of the Biden administration is the reported complaint of Joe Biden that people weren’t acknowledging the economic turnaround.
Biden did a lot of good for the economy! Massive stimulus via the infrastructure bill, a sensible approach to recovery from Covid, acknowledging that recovery from an inflationary period would be necessarily painful, etc. He was a steady hand at a time when America needed one.
But what sends me into apoplexy, what really grinds my gears, is that this motherfucker was so out of touch to believe that this was a messaging problem. He felt that Americans had not yet heard of his accomplishments in turning around the tide of economic misfortune, how badly the republicans would have bungled it, and how the next four years would have been a period of huge growth based on the previous four.
All of these points were absolutely true.
But there is no housing supply. The economic pressures are so hard on young people that their biological impulses are changing.
Young empiricists have taken a look at the climate and have correctly deduced that their future is full of pain in the absence of truly radical action.
And Kamala’s strategy for relieving pressure on the housing market was a $25,000 credit for first time home buyers? In an environment where housing prices have doubled and tripled in fifteen years?
I am one of the very few members of the public that attended Feinstein’s funeral at San Francisco City Hall. And the only one there that day wearing sneakers. I attended her lying in state, paid my respects to a committed civil servant, and in the book, cautioned Pelosi against a similar, “ignominious” end. Then I hear that Pelosi has filed to run again in 2026. As an 86 year old.
At some point the Democratic leadership looks less out of touch and more actively malicious considering the serious and existential crises of the young and near-young in the United States.
The country is in decline because of its extreme individualism, its lack of compassion, and its ruthless “politics is the art of the possible” approach by leaders who could not possibly inspire with bold leadership.
The party is chasing local maxima.
Harris’ solution to the housing problem really annoyed me. There are so many other more effective ways to go about making housing more affordable but she just ignored them. This, in my uneducated opinion, would have also motivated more voters.
In a more general sense, the mainstream Democrats have always had a difficult time with messaging which is nothing new but really showed itself in this past election.
Democrats think that if you just spend time educating the voting population on all the good their policies will do then the voter will make a rational decision in the voting booth. And in the exit polling that is exactly who voted for Harris, highly educated people that like that kind of lecture type of politicking. But most people don’t vote like that - they don’t want a professor in the oval office they want a cheerleader.
Disagree on only one point: the time for a cheerleader has passed.
The people now want a Teddy Roosevelt progressive. A person who physically kicks asses and legally enforces regulations on the Corporates who are undermining the country’s well-being to pad their pockets. A leader who is tough, speaks plainly, and has grit and vision for the conservation of natural resources.
None of these qualities describe any current members of the Democratic party.
There’s a lesson in Teddy though. The industry republicans did their damnedest to sideline him and would’ve succeeded if McKinley hadn’t been shot. They put him in the vice presidency in the first place to get him out of the New York governors house.
Yep. Lots of lessons in our historical precedents that Dems pretend don’t exist.
Nevertheless, I would 100% vote for Teddy Roosevelt’s corpse
Now what exactly did trump offer in terms of the economy?
Lies. But rubes love lies because they’re palatable and don’t create the challenge of critical thinking.
And that’s why HE wins. You can’t be someone like that if you’re on the back foot (incumbent). Hell just lie, the media and podcasters will let him get away with it because he’s the challenger. And you’re doomed. It’s that simple. You’re not beating that.
I would argue that neither the Harris campaign, nor her DNC masters actually wanted to win.
The Dems cherish their “underdog” persona and by losing, they know they’ll be getting even more donations from frantic, fearful Americans. And by losing, the Dems don’t actually have to produce any governance results. They can just sit back and wag their fingers at voters with a smug, “I told you this would happen,” face.
Not by moving to the right like Harris did. You don’t get Republican votes by showing off how you can break solidarity with Muslims, the undocumented, and trans people. You don’t get Republican votes by parading around not one but two Cheneys. If you’re a Democrat, there’s NOTHING you can do to get Republican votes.
But these actions disillusion your base and they stay home.
Very well said. I hated Harris’ “economic plan.” It wasn’t going to make a dent. It might get some people in rural passover states afford a home, which is great for them, but would do nothing but maybe raise costs of entry level tiny condos in any city.
But I do think they accomplished a lot in Biden’s term. If you compare the US’ inflation to other 1st world countries, we recovered far better. We were moving in the right direction. It would have been far worse with Republicans.
And they accomplished all that with a festering rot of DINO obstructionists in the senate, and a republican controlled House. They did an amazing job with the limitations they had.
But they didn’t adequately lay the blame in the right hands. They didn’t address greedy corporate Housing speculation. They tried and failed to reign in “shrinkflation”. And they failed to bring some sanity to the immigrant blaming, and instead somewhat joined in on it.
And Kamala’s strategy for relieving pressure on the housing market was a $25,000 credit for first time home buyers?
This was also going to be coupled with a large tax credit to construction companies for building single-family homes and another tax credit for selling them to first-time homeowners.
Taken together, that all sounds pretty good. But I think what really needs to change is zoning laws. The problem is that the federal government has no control over the zoning ordinances of local communities. Hell, state governments barely have control over that. Usually whenever a rezoning of a neighborhood is brought up, it causes a firestorm at city council meetings.
Why is every Democratic policy a tax credit?
But who will pay for our campaigns if we don’t lick the boot of oligarchs?
Before the 1980s that used to be the unions paying and funding campaigns. The reason Democrats started chasing and boot-licking oligarchs. Is because the unions stopped funding elections and campaigns at the rate they had been before the 1980s. If you can figure out why that was. There were two solid hints given. Then we could probably understand why they’re seeking funding from oligarchs. And how we should probably go about changing that.
People love to complain about Democrats begging for oligarchs money without understanding why. Which helps the oligarchs. And gives them even more control over the DNC than they would have otherwise. I’m not saying we should accept the oligarch funding and ownership. But until we come to terms with why that came to be and address it appropriately. It won’t end anytime soon.
It sounds like you’re saying we need to bribe our politicians to get them to represent us. Is that what you’re getting at? Because I fundamentally disagree with that concept.
Only if you consider funding bribing. Was it bribing when the unions financed the Democratic party before 1980?
Yes. All money needs to be removed from politics with the same amount given to all candidates to run with and dark money investigated and prosecuted. Politicians shouldn’t be NASCAR teams, and lobbying should be called what it actually is.
I agree. The irony is that we’re going to need money and resources to do that. I would rather it wasn’t from oligarchs. The question is then who from. Democrats have “technically” broken fundraising records repeatedly with small donors. Every 4 years. Which is a tiny meaningless record. Republicans and conservatives spend MULTIPLES of that 4 year aggregate EVERY YEAR. On campaigning and messaging.
It was recently revealed that many conservative media personalities and influencers . People like Tim Poole were being paid millions of dollars a year. To put out one barely edited propaganda video a week. To put that in perspective, over the course of two weeks. With 1/5th the effort of a left leaning media personality like Sam Cedar. They make more than he does in a year. In just two weeks. This isn’t isolated either. A big group were found to be unregistered foreign agents of Russia because of this. And Russia didn’t invent it. Our own oligarchs have been patronizing conservative media outlets and influencers like this for decades.
How do we compete with that? Serious question.
Strict campaign finance laws, where all political donations go to a bipartisan elections department and then are split equally between all candidates in graduated stages from the primaries through until the general election. No contributions to candidates directly, no PACs or Super PACs (they can exist but fund everyone equally), no ads paid for outside the provided war chest. Any dark money found results in IRS forensic audits and criminal penalties for the campaigns.
If you want more money for your “side”, you get it at roughly 50% of what you put in. The “other side” gets the other half. Should still drive donations, including mega-doners, because their candidate still gets more money for ads and campaigning. This also allows 3rd party candidates to compete equally at all stages. If we can get graduated polling too this should spur a further plurality of viable candidates.
Political commentary from news and independent “journalism” on places like YouTube would still be covered under free speech, but audits are allowed to look into them being dark money ads with the above consequences for the campaigns.
Foreign ads are what they are unfortunately, but the IRS is good at finding US money laundering through offshore institutions. Make sending money to foreign assets to be spent circumventing these laws especially steep. A few campaign managers and money managers getting 20-life or going to Gitmo for laundering campaign money through Russian agents should help curb some shenanigans.
Sounds great. How do we get there? Campaign finance laws are written and voted on by politicians. Why would a politician funded by oligarchs cut off their own funding?
If you want campaign finance reform, you need politicians in office who are willing to vote for it. Which means you need to get them into office. Which means their campaigns need funding.
That means we need a plan to fund campaigns in the current landscape, before reform.
You can disagree in principle, but that’s what liberal democracy is, and that’s what participating in it in any meaningful way entails.
Perhaps that is why many choose not to participate
I think the campaigns at this point can be funded with regular donations. I don’t think corporate donations are even needed at this point.
The key thing to realize is that in a presidential race, you reach advertising saturation. Hillary and Kamala both massively outspent Trump in their campaigns, but they still lost. Their financial advantage didn’t help because ads reach saturation. At some point, everyone already knows about the candidates, and additional money spent really doesn’t help you.
The Democratic party could get by just fine with the amount of donations they can raise from individual donors. They don’t do this because the consultants that run the DNC ad buying get paid a percentage of all ad buys. And the DNC itself simply benefits from having larger budgets in general. So the push is always to have as much ad spend as possible, even if having that large ad spend requires cozying up to oligarchs.
They should. But they can’t currently be. And no one has a plan on how to get it there. Actually Republicans and the oligarchs are actively making it harder to do. They own all the popular TV, radio, print, and social media and are turning most of the people you know or have contact with against it.
The pittance Democrats and the DNC are raising from small donors etc can’t even begin to get us there. What’s worse is that they’re trying to get the money to actually push back. And people want to crucify them for it. But not provide actual alternatives. Actual left wing media is atrophied and under funded. With no reach or presence. But vital in addition to campaign funding. Just completely ignored.
A campaign for someone people wants will pay for itself. Everything will be provided and the press will be free if it wishes to remain clicked and watched
This billion dollar campaign frenzy every 4 years is an industrial complex that needs to die
Simpson’s Skinner meme, “no, it’s the voters that are wrong”
Both can be true.
But only one lets the party keep ignoring the voters and moving to the right. So that’s the one the party will go with.
Democrats:
“The DNC hears ya. The DNC don’t care.”
This is BS. People saying Kamala was too liberal, or too centrist, she was riding too much on Biden achievements or not enough etc etc.
The real reason for this is that majority of people no longer get their news from MSM, they get their news from social media which are hevily slanted for trump. Not only GOP understands how influential those are, but they are helped with foreign entities who are free to use these media as well.
This also isn’t just happening to US but also to Europe.
The fucking solution is to get your family off of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok etc. it is a cancer and essentially hacks their brain.
You might think that social media is great, because everyone can have a voice. This might be true for sites like Lemmy, but in other places what you post is irrelevant, because their algorithm controls what others see. It is very clever, because they can hide behind freedom of speech to not restrict the sites, while essentially still having full control of what it is shown and zero consequences.
With AI they don’t even need people anymore they can generate content themselves and say it is a real user.
Why do you think companies involved in social media are also heavily invested with generative AI?
The fucking solution is to get your family off of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok etc. it is a cancer and essentially hacks their brain.
What you’re implying here is that people aren’t smart enough to navigate social media intelligently, without being duped by propaganda and group think, yet you are.
Protecting dumb people by hiding them from social media, is a bad fix for a symptom of other major problems. Fixing symptoms like this is never a good solution.
What we need is education massively overhauled, to the point it would be unrecognizable to what we have today. People should have the critical thinking skills and educational background to laugh there ass off and shrug off
right wingpropaganda, and never let it take hold.This is a much bigger problem, and we’re losing significantly, but it’s what should be discussed instead of just hiding social media from people.
The social media sites are known to collect vast information about us. The explanation is that it is meant for targeted ads, but the same information can be also used to know which buttons to press.
You scroll between funny videos and once in a while you get something that maybe will anger you, or maybe scare and in any way impact what you will do.
Just taking a recent example. To pro Palestinian people they received messages that Harris is bad for Palestine and we can show her and protest by not voting.
Meanwhile the same social media was telling pro Israeli people that they should not vote for Harris, because she is pro Palestine.
This is how they are getting desired outcome. And unlike MSM they can fine tune the message to specific category of people.
Most people in the US do not have the requisite media understanding to navigate social media, or even media, for that matter, without being duped.
This is evident in the growth of the flat earth movement, and other literally idiotic movements.
”and shrug off
right wingpropaganda" FTFYYeah fair enough.
Follow up question: how would this hypothetical educational reform even work? I fully understand that education funding in the US is very much at risk with darth cheeto coming back, but say you managed to creat this curiculum. How would it be different from what we currently have, and do you see a path of reaching it from our current system? (Would it require starting small with charter schools or is it something we could realisticly change with a large bill + funding)
Not trying to be a bother bear, but you proposed a solution so I want to see where the collective would take it.
Honest answer: I have absolutely no idea. I didn’t propose a solution per se, other than “change it drastically”. And more than just critical thinking skills.
The most important thing is we need a society where the people in power and decision making actually desire this. Our power structures don’t want this, as we all know. Keeping us dumb and uninformed, makes us easier to manipulate and control, and do the low paying jobs nobody really wants. Without this we can’t even think about major change. Our purpose to “produce and consume” is the foundation for the billionaires wealth.
I don’t have any answer on how to teach critical thinking specifically, we need smart people (altruistic, not power seeking or other agendas) to help architect this. All I know is anyone leaving k-12 should graduate with very good critical thinking skills as well as be scientifically literate, reading/writing, other necessities… Our current public education system just seems like an indoctrination to show up to a building 5 days a week to do boring monotonous tasks. My friends and I hated school, and having friends at a young age only made it bearable. Ironically, I and many people love to learn many different topics. I had to learn about this outside of school, how does that make sense? And I’m talking STEM related stuff! Things that are valuable to the capitalism machine!
How about we also emphasize finding individuals’ passions and natural skills, and helping them pursue them earlier, in addition to necessities.
I’d love to see some pretty drastic and crazy structural changes as well: imaging removing time as the fixed variable for learning. If you want to learn calculus, you’re going to learn the entire curriculum. Instead of getting a B “learning” 80% of the material on the test, you aren’t done until you master all of it. You get an A if you do it in 6 weeks. B if 10 weeks, etc. If you still haven’t mastered it in a year, you probably should come to the conclusion you’re not going to be a mathematician and choose something else… I love this idea but recognize how difficult it would be, how would it even work? This fixed time deadline nonsense is a capitalism thing. I hate it.
None of this matters though unless we get control. We need control first before even thinking about implementation and change.
Being influenced / tricked / conned has surprisingly little to do with being ‘smart’ or ‘educated’. Smart people can still be tricked.
A way to manipulate people is to give them plausible (mis)information. What counts as ‘plausible’ depends on a person’s education and interests; but there is always an area of vulnerability at the edges of a person’s understanding. That’s why there are so many different layers to misinformation campaigns. They are targeting different groups of people. And it is highly dangerous to start believing you can see through them all - because in reality, you only see through the ones that don’t target you.
One of the propaganda powers of algorithmically controlled social media is that it is if a user gives up enough of their person info, it makes it possible to automatically target that person with misinformation that is specially suited to their interests, circles of trust, and level of understanding.
… anyway, my point is that although education is always good; it doesn’t defeat propaganda outright.
There’s been a right wing media since the 1970’s, Xitter has always been an also ran social media site and while Facebook is the largest social media site it’s long past it’s heyday and is filled primarily with bots and boomers.
You’re getting everything backwards. The only reason why Democrats won in the past 50 years is because they have been riding on the their past actual progressive achievements like Social Security, Medicare, Good Stamps, The Civil Rights Act, etc.
Now that they’re done nothing but take turns with the GOP destroying those government safety nets there’s no goddamn reason for voters to vote for Democrats.
Oh and the whole reason why the right has a strangle hold on media is because of Democratic deregulation of media and telecommunications.
Yeah! People need to go back to trusting good ol cable news! They’ve never steered us wrong
Wait, so apparently Americans don’t want neoliberal economic policies so they didn’t vote for Kamala, but instead voted for Trump and his neoliberal economic policies?
This shit is stupid and old already. It reeks of people using unhealthy coping mechanism to deal with the idea that the average American shifted even further right.
The average american doesn’t know what neoliberal economic policies are, but the average american can feel the impact of neoliberalism on a daily basis. Convincing people you have a solution to what everyone knows is wrong (even if your solution is even more neoliberalism and blaming minorities, the old reliable) is what get people in booths.
Conversely, saying things are fine the way they are is the easiest way to lose an election.
What killed Biden and Harris was the outright denial of what people were feeling.
“The economy is hurting us!”
“What are you talking about, Jack? We have the best economy ever! Look… inflation is only 3% (on top of 3%, on top of 9%), we’re doing GREAT! Not a joke! I’m serious!”
1/3 of voting age Americans voted for Trump (that 3rd wants fascism)… 1/3 for Kamala, and 1/3 stayed home… A lot of the 1/3 that stayed home did so because they don’t want neolib policy, and probably a lot of the 1/3 that voted for her also don’t want neolib policy. There’s very little to support the idea that anyone “shifted right”… They shifted home when they weren’t given an option to vote against genocide and other neolib bullshit
No. The majority 40% didn’t vote, and roughly 30% votes for trump and Harris.
Okay, but my point remains unchanged
No there is not 1/3rd that wants Fascism. There is a small percentage that want a Christian Nationalist government, but most Trump voters just seriously think he did a better job with the economy. They don’t have an economic education and they know it was easier to feed their families when he was president.
Don’t other people who should be your allies. Division of the working class works in the favor of the elites and extremists.
No 1/3rd never votes and there’s no point in trying to get their vote
Except quite a few voted last time and then not this time… So we know they do vote sometimes
Fuck 'em
This is why democrats always lose elections. This attitude right here.
Well, that and not being willing to commit violence against fascists.
Weird that I’m not even a Democrat and I still make them lose
To be fair, Republicans don’t go after them either… And the people who aren’t Democrats always “make them lose”, if everyone was a Democrat, they’d always win everything (okay, they’d probably still figure out a way to lose, but I hope you get my point)
I would have voted for Bernie Sanders
I used to vote but Democrats proved they’re a waste of time
Then other people get to decide for you. Good job.
Decide what? The policies and direction I didn’t want anyway?
Trump’s economic policies aren’t neoliberal so much as mercantilist. He wants tariffs and trade wars. (There’s obviously also a dash of fascist policies where he wants companies to serve him.)
Fascism was the rebranding of mercantilism. State supported industry with a blurry line between state and private actors and owners, all ultimately supported by imperial conquest and colonialism.
Trump verbally promised to change the system. Harris said the system is doing great, you’re doing great, anyone who says they aren’t doing great doesn’t understand the economic genius that is Biden’s economy.
The predictable happened. Democrats were warned when Biden tried to take a victory lap on the economy in 2023. They ignored that warning and didn’t attempt to pass legislation they knew was required. Even if they failed they could have been seen fighting for the people. We know they knew what the required legislation is because Biden suddenly promised national rent controls right before being forced to step aside. Then Harris silently kept them in her campaign but didn’t highlight them again until a week before the election. When she was desperate.
Until Democrats actually show, in their actions, that they’re fighting for the working class, the beatings will continue. And no shutting down strikes and one vote on minimum wage isn’t going to cut it. They need to be in the news every week on some aspect of the financial pain the working class feels, and repeats are not only okay, but necessary. A term has 208 weeks in it, that’s enough to press several issues. They can also do a quarterly podcast, this entire idea of silently governing was proven inferior by FDR. Even Obama had the petition system which generated national conversations. People do not expect that a quiet government is doing something. In fact they are suspicious of it.
Or maybe, hear me out, the country just shifted right due to mass propaganda…
They’ve certainly shifted on the wedge issues. But the biggest issue remains, and will always remain, putting food on the table.
No matter how far to the right we go because the Democrats refuse to engage in a national conversation over rights and democracy, people will never stop believing they personally deserve shelter, food, education, and disposable income.
Deliver on those core issues and they’ll mutter about gay rights all day long while they vote for the party that delivered.
The people that like trump like that shit. The people that vote dem, at most, tolerate it but the harder they lean in that direction the less enthusiastic their base is about voting for them
Kamala just got the 3rd most votes in American history. Wtf are you talking about?
Hahaha, good one. I’m sure that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
DNC:
“Progressive roots”?
For some people FDR is the closest thing they can imagine to be progressive politics. The progressive-conservative switch in the Republican and Democratic Parties always makes for weird statements. You’ve got neo-nazis and neo-confederates controlling the Republican Party and Republicans say they are the party of Lincoln.
Lol, maybe that’s what progressives need to do just invade Republican politics and take IT over!
Switch the sides again!
Might be easier than getting Democrats to treat progressives as valued members of their constituency.
That’s what Democrats have been trying to do since Bill Clinton. The Republicans have already been captured by the MAGA movement, where as the Democrats have yet to be captured by a movement. So for progressives and socialists, it should be easier to capture the Democrats.
It’s like pokemon. =p
Honestly it’s more possible…
The message to
Democratsneo-libs and neo-cons, is clear: you must dumpneoliberal economicscorporatism.Translation: “Change who you are. Completely, not superficially. Just don’t be who you are and have been.”
Which won’t happen because that would require them to turn their back on the donor class, corporate media and lobbyists.
So what can be done?
Armed revolution in the face of 5th generation multi-role fighter aircraft and predator drones with hellfire missiles seems like a fool’s errand.
I’d say let’s start with trying to vote out the DNC leadership in the next round of primaries.
They shouldn’t have existed ever. Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. My spelling may be off.
It goes beyond just that. I think a Democratic presidential candidate could do well addressing elitist thinking in general. I think they could do quite well with a pledge not to appoint anyone to their cabinet or to a court that graduated from an Ivy League school. One of the reasons we keep seeing the same shitty approaches is that both parties recruit heavily from the same handful of schools. This they’re recruited from the same social circles. I would suggest that candidates just flat out state that they’ll be filling all their major spots with people who got their education at state schools.
So we’re discriminating against possibly qualified personnel because they graduated from an Ivy League school (like JD Vance).
But not against the billionaires and millionaires trump is appointing?
Yes. Because social context and group think matter. The Democratic Party is indeed stuck in a coastal elite mindset. When I say school, it’s not even specifically about the kind of instruction the schools teach. It’s more about the social networks that have developed around these elite institutions. It encouragesc group think and narrow minded approaches. It’s why every Dem policy proposal is the same collection of wonkish tax credits. It’s why nationalizing the banks wasn’t one the table during the 2008 recession. It’s why they don’t know how to reach regular people. They just don’t know how to think any differently. Hell, look up the figures on federal judge nominations by law school attendance. It’s insane how much narrow minded we allow our institutions to be simply by primarily recruiting from a handful of elite schools and their alumni networks.
So we should dismiss people like Lina Khan because you want to virtue signal to “moderates” and “leftist” that Dems aren’t elitist?
It’s breathtaking how badly you missed the point here.
