Politesse
Lux Aeterna
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2018
- Messages
- 12,297
- Location
- Chochenyo Territory, US
- Gender
- nonbinary
- Basic Beliefs
- Jedi Wayseeker
If "appealing to the middle" works so well, why didn't it? Biden was and is the centrist candidate.
We ran Biden, and he won by a slim margin, and you conclude that fear of socialism was the reason why.
If we'd run Bernie, and he won by a slim margin, you would conclude that fear of socialism was the reason why.
If we'd run Biden, and he lost in a landslide, you would conclude that fear of socialism was the reason why.
If we'd run Bernie, and he lost in a landslide, you would conclude that fear of socialism was the reason why.
I'm glad that AOC is in my party. However, we can't allow her and the squad to drown out all the other voices in the democratic party. And for god's sakes, let's stop using street lingo and stop scarring moderates away from our party. We are not the republicans. We can't win a general election without overwhelming popular support. Biden barely won the election. Incredibly close. And yet, he will end up with 7 or 8 million more votes. Sorry but it's reality: we must be the party of the big tent. Or we'll be toast in 4 years.
I think it would be better for the country if they weren't in Washington. They provide so much ammunition for those who want to portray the Democrats as crazy that they drive people to the party of crazy.
"I wasn't going to join the Nazis, but the threat of free healthcare just pushed me right over the edge."
If that sentence makes sense to you, it's not a mythical moderate middle that's afraid of social progress. It's you.
I strongly suspect that once the Republicans are gone for good, the DNC will take their former place as the home for political conservatives in the US, set against a true Progressive wing.
"I wasn't going to join the Nazis, but the threat of free healthcare just pushed me right over the edge."
If that sentence makes sense to you, it's not a mythical moderate middle that's afraid of social progress. It's you.
I strongly suspect that once the Republicans are gone for good, the DNC will take their former place as the home for political conservatives in the US, set against a true Progressive wing.
A true progressive wing will not get enough votes.
"I wasn't going to join the Nazis, but the threat of free healthcare just pushed me right over the edge."
If that sentence makes sense to you, it's not a mythical moderate middle that's afraid of social progress. It's you.
I strongly suspect that once the Republicans are gone for good, the DNC will take their former place as the home for political conservatives in the US, set against a true Progressive wing.
A true progressive wing will not get enough votes.
We were well-represented in this election. Our message becomes more popular with every election. We constitute more than 2/5 of House Democrats at present. Why don't you think that will continue?
"I wasn't going to join the Nazis, but the threat of free healthcare just pushed me right over the edge."
If that sentence makes sense to you, it's not a mythical moderate middle that's afraid of social progress. It's you.
I strongly suspect that once the Republicans are gone for good, the DNC will take their former place as the home for political conservatives in the US, set against a true Progressive wing.
A true progressive wing will not get enough votes.
We were well-represented in this election. Our message becomes more popular with every election. We constitute more than 2/5 of House Democrats at present. Why don't you think that will continue?
We were well-represented in this election. Our message becomes more popular with every election. We constitute more than 2/5 of House Democrats at present. Why don't you think that will continue?
So you have 20% of the vote. That wins you about zero seats.
how could you know that, seeing as how this country has never really had a true progressive in a situation where they had a fair shake at getting votes in the first place?A true progressive wing will not get enough votes.
how could you know that, seeing as how this country has never really had a true progressive in a situation where they had a fair shake at getting votes in the first place?A true progressive wing will not get enough votes.
granted i'm being a bit petulant in this and it requires a number of qualifiers... but there's never been a 'true progressive' in the US that got to be in a position of national prominence that wasn't slandered and lied about by their political opposition (and a news media complicit with their political opposition) and abandoned by their political allies.
i wonder how well the voting public would take to a well articulated message of progressive ideology that wasn't marred or tempered by the need to placate corporate interests and needing to be constantly defensive about lies and misinformation being told about the message.
i don't know for certain it would do well, but i don't know for certain it wouldn't do well.
We were well-represented in this election. Our message becomes more popular with every election. We constitute more than 2/5 of House Democrats at present. Why don't you think that will continue?
So you have 20% of the vote. That wins you about zero seats.
Every new party starts with zero seats.
You don't seem to remember, a bunch of progressives in the primaries couldn't even get out of the primary. So this whole "Progressives will win if we put them out there" isn't paying close attention to all the losses among progressives.Every new party starts with zero seats.
And of course, there are more than zero seats currently. And as you say, it is growing. The Tea Party Republicans also started with zero seats. It's a fundamentally silly argument. It's pure question-begging. Progressives can't win because Progressives can't win.
You don't seem to remember, a bunch of progressives in the primaries couldn't even get out of the primary. So this whole "Progressives will win if we put them out there" isn't paying close attention to all the losses among progressives.Every new party starts with zero seats.
And of course, there are more than zero seats currently. And as you say, it is growing. The Tea Party Republicans also started with zero seats. It's a fundamentally silly argument. It's pure question-begging. Progressives can't win because Progressives can't win.
And as a reminder, Trump won Florida by convincing Cuban and Venezuelan Hispanics that Joe Biden was a socialist or that he'd be beholden to socialists. The right-wing propaganda machine did a marvelous job painting a freshman from the Bronx as the face of the Democrat Party.
And the GOP has proven, they'll stop at almost nothing to lie (using the right-wing media empire) about their opponents. They've done such a good job, millions of Americans think this election isn't decided yet!
Biden lost them more than Clinton. And I should have rephrased what I said in that the Republicans did a good job painting the caricature of a Freshman representative from the Bronx as the face of the Democrat Party.You don't seem to remember, a bunch of progressives in the primaries couldn't even get out of the primary. So this whole "Progressives will win if we put them out there" isn't paying close attention to all the losses among progressives.
And as a reminder, Trump won Florida by convincing Cuban and Venezuelan Hispanics that Joe Biden was a socialist or that he'd be beholden to socialists. The right-wing propaganda machine did a marvelous job painting a freshman from the Bronx as the face of the Democrat Party.
And the GOP has proven, they'll stop at almost nothing to lie (using the right-wing media empire) about their opponents. They've done such a good job, millions of Americans think this election isn't decided yet!
They didn't have to convince the Cubans of anything. The Cubans have always voted this way. I've always said they are a lost cause.
Yes, progs have won, I'm not saying Progs can't win I'm saying a progressive winning isn't a fait accompli simply if they are prog. There is way too much oversimplification regarding left-wing/moderate politics at the moment.But you are just ignoring that progressives have won in ways that would have been deemed impossible only a decade ago. Of course they have also lost. I maintain that the woke left are the only thing holding it back. No one likes them.
Trump got 47% of the vote after the last four years. There is virtually little to be optimistic about.But I am still optimistic about the long term.
Putting the eggs in the 'younger voters' will save us, is a ridiculous strategy. Politics appears to be transitioning back to a 1960's state of mind, with an incredibly effective propaganda machine behind the GOP.The millennials are going to start to turn into a more active voting bloc as they age, people forget that the oldest ones are almost in their forties. I say give it another 4-8 years. And the zoomers will come after. And again, progressive policies are very popular, and their popularity is only increasing. Of course, for the time being, it will be slow, and the most important thing will be preventing the deplorables like Biden from indulging in their worst tendencies. And waiting a little bit for them to die off. But it will ultimately hinge on slow, sustained persuasion and messaging discipline, as well as fighting tooth and nail for local positions. The republicans demonstrated the way.
Not so much the former, but certainly the latter.And as a reminder, Trump won Florida by convincing Cuban and Venezuelan Hispanics that Joe Biden was a socialist or that he'd be beholden to socialists.
It is not primarily the "right-wing propaganda machine" that did that. Plenty of Democrats have been gushing over AOC and those in her squad being the future of the Party.The right-wing propaganda machine did a marvelous job painting a freshman from the Bronx as the face of the Democrat Party.
The millennials are going to start to turn into a more active voting bloc as they age, people forget that the oldest ones are almost in their forties. I say give it another 4-8 years. And the zoomers will come after. And again, progressive policies are very popular, and their popularity is only increasing.
Biden is "deplorable" now? Why? Because he is not a socialist?Of course, for the time being, it will be slow, and the most important thing will be preventing the deplorables like Biden from indulging in their worst tendencies.
But we do mean to take money from the police budget to fund solutions that better handle problems like drug addiction and domestic violence.
Police having crowd control/riot gear such as armored Bearcats is not "militarization". It's not like police have artillery, main battle tanks or aircraft careers.We should stop funding the militarization of the police.
As do many Dems.Trump and his followers call these things socialism.
There is a lot of racism on the far left. Like the claim that white men are the root of all evil.We haven't even touched on the systemic racism that is the hallmark of Trumpism. Do we not try, once again, to eliminate this? Because it fuels white male grievance politics? Because it is at the core of the current Republican party and its current officeholders?