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The Window keeps moving for one simple reason.
The GOPs vote in every election. They may hate the candidate but if they've gotten the Party's endorsement they'll vote.
The Left keeps waiting for the perfect candidate to come along...
"Perfect"
The left is waiting for an actual left candidate and the Democrats keep running moderate right-wingers who wouldn't have been out of place on the Republican ticket 25 years ago.
“””””moderate right-wingers”””””, only in this shithole could we call a fascist-lite candidate that. Gods I hate this dump
I didn't think that needed to be added. We all understand where "moderate" right-wing behavior leads..
Personally I’ve seen a few apologists for them on here so felt it needed to add that
That bullshit is why we have Trump.
Abortion? LGBT rights? Legalized Marijuana?
Look at any issue and Harris was farther left than any 1995 Democrat. But she wasn't perfect enough.
Remind me, which leftist leaders did she bring up on stage to promote her candidacy?
Cornell West, or literally 100 Republicans?
Harris' own bullshit is why the Republicans won. She could have done nothing but sit on her hands 'til election day and gotten better results.
She was trying to win an election by appealing to Republicans who didn't like Trump. Bringing in Republicans who don't agree with Democrats but were against Trump seemed like a good idea. Her only problem was not running ads that attacked how bad the economy was under Trump and not outright lying like Trump did to win the election.
But that's beside the point that the claim was that Democrats are farther right than 1995-2000 Republicans which is objectively false.
She was trying to win an election by appealing to Republicans who didn't like Trump.
I.E., choosing to alienate the Democratic base by appealing to those they oppose.
Bringing in Republicans who don't agree with Democrats but were against Trump seemed like a good idea.
Seemed. Past tense. I.E., an acknowledgement that Harris' choice of stage partners didn't actually help her in the election.
Her only problem was not running ads that attacked how bad the economy was under Trump and not outright lying like Trump did to win the election.
You must not be an American if you think that appeals to the distant past like that will work on our goldfish-brains.
But that's beside the point that the claim was that Democrats are farther right than 1995-2000 Republicans which is objectively false.
You must not have lived through that era if you don't recall all the Democrat warmongers after 2001 or capitalists like Clinton boosting the prison population in the 90's.
choosing to alienate the Democratic base by appealing to those they oppose.
Uniting everyone who didn't like Trump was a good idea.
distant past like that will work on our goldfish-brains.
That's exactly why Trump's economic failure needed to be the primary message. Everyone forgot.
You must not have lived through that era if you don't recall all the Democrat warmongers after 2001 or capitalists like Clinton boosting the prison population in the 90's.
???? That exactly proves my point. The OP claimed today's Democrats are farther right than the Republicans from 25+ years ago. You just gave more examples of how past Democrats were not the far leftists that current American kids imagine.
Uniting everyone who didn't like Trump was a good idea.
And instead of doing that, the Democrats once again divided their own base to chase the mythical moderate republican.
The people they were appealing to were not just Republicans, they were still republicans after Trump's first term. If they had any issues with Trump's "leadership", they had plenty of time to come to terms with them and leave the party of their own accord.
That the Democrats thought appeals to this demographic would improve their position reveals that they fundamentally do not understand the electorate they hope to woo.
That's exactly why Trump's economic failure needed to be the primary message. Everyone forgot.
Yeah, everyone was distracted with how shitty the economic situation was under Biden. Harris had an opportunity to break from that and squandered it by sticking to Biden's "no really, the economy is good" gaslighting message. The Dems could have made a bunch of false promises like the Republicans and maybe gotten a stalemate on this issue at the ballot box, but that would be a bit of a reach.
Those are all good points but they still don't have anything to do with my original rebuttal of the claim that Democrats are now further right than Republicans from 25 years ago.
I don't recall rebutting that point. It's kind of a central feature of my argument.
You wrote this:
The left is waiting for an actual left candidate and the Democrats keep running moderate right-wingers who wouldn't have been out of place on the Republican ticket 25 years ago.
25 years ago Republicans wanted to overturn Roe V Wade. 25 years ago Republicans wanted to stop don't ask don't tell and outright ban gays from the military. 25 years ago no Republicans supported gay marriage. 25 years ago Republicans complained about DEI. 25 years ago Republicans were against legalized Marijuana. 25 years ago Republicans were against any healthcare reform. 25 years ago Republicans talked about privatizing Social Security.
Harris was objectively not equivalent to a Republican from 25 years ago. The bullshit that Democrats got worse is what got Trump elected.
Democrats 24 years ago we're trying to pass comprehensive medical coverage. Republicans said it should be up to the employer. Now the right say that no one is entitled to any compensation or benefits without struggle. Dems today argue that medical coverage must be tied to employment or else welfare will spike. The Dems are actively using the strategy of a pre-millenium American right wing. Fuck, go find anything Newt Gingrich has to say on the topic during the Clinton years and show me how it's different from Josh Shapiro or pre-VP Harris in 2016.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Democrats 24 years ago we're trying to pass comprehensive medical coverage.
No they weren't.
Expanding Medicaid to welfare and age 55+ is not universal healthcare.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2000-democratic-party-platform
The 2010 ACA is far more comprehensive than the Democrat platform from 2000.
You are imagining a past Democratic party that never existed. Back in 2007, Obama was against gay marriage. Before him Clinton was, "Don't ask, don't tell- or you'll be removed from service." It's another example of how Democrats have moved left.
Democrats are farther left than they were 25 years ago. You hold Democrats to an ideal that never existed to rationalize your letting Trump win.
The problem is the Democrats aren't a real leftist party. I'm done waiting for the Democrats to finally disobey their oligarch masters and cater to their voters.
Sounds like your plan is to sit and wait while Trump runs amok. What am I missing?
The fact that it isn't safe to post about such activities online and any left wing parties that form are immediately targeted by alphabet agencies.
That's been the Democrats plan too
More than that they're hodgepodge party. They're combination of liberals and leftist. This was okay for the most part when the little liberals, the petite bourgeoisie, was in control of the party. Because their interest usually align mostly with the left, if not totally. But starting in the late seventies and the eighties the neoliberals took over, the big liberals, the the grand bourgeoisie. So now the party is run by people whose economic and social interests are directly and violently opposed to leftists. So the party's inherently self-destructive.
Until we jettison those neoliberals, we have no chance. That's why so many people say it's time for a new party. Leave them to their old decrepit party and move in Mass to something new.
They are physically unable to jettison those people because they're responsible for the majority of the funding.
"the Republicans vote in every election" said the foaming Democrat as the Gestapo took them away to the camps.
your country is literally going through a coup and all you can think about is this fetishistic image of saving your country through electoral reform. I'd be laughing if I wasn't so disturbed.
I'm always open to learning.
Why don't you explain in detail how you personally mustered a large swath of the population to follow you.
I'm not a democrat so I don't have a making people follow me kink. i prefer allies that can think for themselves
I was at a local protest yesterday. There were probably a few thousand of us in total. As we were marched around, led by police officers who monitored and managed our progress the whole time, I just kept thinking "This many people working together could probably actually do something that gets national attention." We have a Trump Tower in my city that the protest went by, and everyone just ineffectually flipped it off or yelled some dumb shit like "Fuck Donald Trump." I bet if we'd all charged the lobby at once, it'd have broken through to national news, but instead we kept an orderly and maintained peace as we shouted "No Justice, No Peace." It won't surprise you to learn corporate news didn't bother to report on it, since nothing really happened.
I'm getting out of this place, Americans have no goddamn chance. They don't know how to protest, they don't know how to scare their oligarchs anymore. It's no wonder the oligarchs are laughing at us, I'm laughing too.
self-flagellation doesn't help anyone either. to us looking from outside the west it makes you look silly.
nobody is born knowing how to protest. the countries that do it more commonly do it because they put time aside to organize in their local communities.
I'm not sure protesting is worth that much energy anyways. the partisans didn't eliminate Nazis by protesting, they acknowledged that the time for that was long gone.
the impactful shit can't be legally talked about in public. we need more of that.
nope
Kamala Harris won 74,999,166 votes or 48.3 percent of the votes cast. That was 6,285,500 fewer popular votes than Biden won in 2020, but 774,847 more than Trump won in 2020.
The failure is on the campaign. Neoliberalism leading to Fascism is no coincidence.
Key Takeaways
● Before Biden exited the race, voters were highly concerned about his age, and swing voters overwhelmingly cited it as the main reason they wouldn’t vote for Biden.
● Voters were also deeply unsatisfied with Biden’s economy. A strong majority perceived the economy as getting worse for people like them, with more than 3 in 4 consistently reporting they were paying more for groceries. Voters blamed Biden more than any other person or group for U.S. economic conditions.
● While voters across party lines strongly supported Biden’s populist economic policies, many were not aware that his administration had enacted them.
● When Harris entered the race, her favorability surged, along with Democrats’ and Independents’ enthusiasm for voting in the election.
● On the economy — voters’ top issue — Harris struggled to escape Biden’s legacy. Half of voters said that Harris would mostly continue the same policies as Biden, leading swing state voters to prefer Trump on handling inflation.
● Harris was effective at communicating to voters that she supported increasing taxes on billionaires, but struggled to break through with other aspects of her popular economic agenda. Most voters heard only “a little” or “nothing at all” about her plans to crack down on corporate price gouging, protect Social Security and Medicare, and lower the price of groceries, prescription drugs, and child care.
● Voters were unsure whether Harris or Trump had a clearer vision, and were split on which candidate could better manage the government.
● Beyond the economy, voters trusted Trump more than Biden and Harris on immigration, foreign policy, and changing the status quo.
● The Harris campaign effectively increased the percentage of voters who believed that Trump would attempt to pass a national abortion ban. However, voters consistently ranked the economy as a higher concern.
● Voters also reported high levels of concern about the Project 2025 agenda. However, many did not believe that Trump was associated with Project 2025.
● While Harris held an advantage with voters who regularly consume political news, those who consume little or no political news — a group that disproportionately consumes content on social media — supported Harris at much lower rates.
Some people were making these points before and during them happening:
The GOPs vote in every election.
Republican voters (especially the radicals) throw a fit and stay home or vote third party whenever they don't get their way. Because they've done this, the Republican party has learned to fall in line behind what they want, and so they vote for it. Even so, the Libertarian party regularly gets triple the votes of the Greens and the last major third party candidate drew votes primarily from the right. The right is constantly whining about "RINOs," and if you go into most right-wing circles and try the shit liberals do with the left, "Sure you might not agree with their stance on abortion, sure they're going to regulate your guns, but if you don't fall in line, you're not a 'real' right-winger," you would be bullied and laughed at.
Liberals think it's the opposite because they're obsessed with making sure every single person falls in line without a single condition. Absolutely no respect for anyone's moral convictions (in contrast to the right). So anyone who ever tries to hold the democrats to a standard is the most important thing ever, whereas on the right it's just normalized and accepted because it's so common.
There is no data whatsoever that supports your narrative, and it also doesn't make any sense. There are so many more "my way or the highway" types on the right, this is the culture that produces soverign citizens who are the ultimate expression of "refusing to compromise your beliefs even when it's completely unreasonable and out of line with reality," and libertarians and such are just a lighter version of that.
Democrat voters throw a fit and stay home or vote third party whenever they don’t get their way…
Are you sure you got that right? Republicans fall in line to vote no matter who. Dems want their personal issue addressed before they’ll vote.
Yes, I'm sure I have it right. Your "conventional wisdom" is complete nonsense with no basis in reality.
As I explained, the reason that "conventional wisdom" exists is because democrats make a much bigger deal of it on the rare occasions that the left makes any demands whatsoever, whereas on the right, making demands and standing on principle is accepted and normalized.
You can't provide a single shred of evidence to support this "conventional wisdom" because it's not true, it has no basis in reality, it's just rhetoric that liberals like to throw around because they're so obsessed with making sure everyone falls in line unconditionally.
I really don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
I really think that I'm the only one whose presented a shred of evidence to support their position.
Your opinion is not evidence.
Republicans fall in line:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/11/california-gop-trump-holdouts-00146233
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/republicans-fall-line-trump-nominees-politics-desk-rcna190704
https://www.sungazette.com/opinion/other-commentaries/2024/07/the-party-of-falling-in-line/
You have offered nothing.
Neither are a bunch of thinkpiecies blithely reciting the conventional wisdom in their headlines (which you didn't read past). You literally just googled "republicans fall in line" and picked the three results at random.
Literally none of the articles you linked support your position. All three are talking about republican politicians falling in line behind Trump - a candidate who was selected by the base against the wishes of the establishment of the party. Yes, the establishment politicians do fall in line behind the voters, this is exactly what I'm arguing, thank you for providing support for my position. What you're trying to argue is the exact opposite, that the voters fall in line behind whatever the party wants.
I really don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
Wow, what a compelling argument.
I know about dozens of Democrats who voted third party or abstained this last election because they didn't like the handling of Israel/Gaza or Kamala or something and that lines up with elections past.
Edit: not wanting it to be the case doesnt make it false.
Democrat voters throw a fit and stay home or vote third party whenever they don’t get their way…
If only. Green Party consistently gets votes in the low single digits. Jill Stein got one half of one percent in 2024. That's beyond embarrassing, and I say that as a Green. Other leftist parties get even less.
I wish somebody had thrown a fit over Harris. It might've done some good. The few people who did try to hold her feet to the fire over Gaza were either mocked or ignored. As it was, none of that legitimate criticism got through, so the campaign just crashed and burned.
The GOP base knows exactly how to move the Overton window: vote in every election and win.
Ratchet theory: the GOP keeps pushing us to the right; the Democrats prevent movement to the left.
The left being so obedient to the Democratic Party is part of the problem. If more of them voted Green, some change could actually happen.
If more of them voted Green, some change could actually happen.
Jill Stein doesn't think Putin is so bad.
https://www.newsweek.com/jill-stein-vladimir-putin-war-criminal-1954965
Oh, no! She didn't denounce Putin fast enough! I guess I have to vote for genocide, then...
Let me guess: you're one of those people who squawks about "purity tests", too, huh? And the irony is completely lost on you.
The GOP has been using the Green Party to split the Left vote for years.
Putin has been linked to political assassinations going back years.
If you need more evidence, I'll send you some more links.
Why do you keep bringing up Putin? I'm not voting for Putin. I don't care what the GOP thinks about the Green Party, either. Why do you find these arguments compelling?
Oh, no! She didn’t denounce Putin fast enough!
Literally the first thing you mentioned was Putin. And then you get on me for explaining myself.
And if you don't care what the GOP thinks of the Greens means that you have absolutely no idea how elections actually work in the US. I'll give you a link on 'splitting the vote' so you can understand.
The GOP has been using the Green Party to split the Left vote for years.
how could that be effective, if the green party didn't push leftist views?
I'll relink the article on vote splitting.
It's amazing to me to talk to people who claim to be political and yet seem to have never actually considered how elections actually work.
this is just spam.
the answer is the green party does push leftist views.
I did a quick check. there's not one Green Party member of Congress as of 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Green_politicians_who_have_held_office_in_the_United_States
I never said that the Party didn't have Leftist views; I said that they are taking Left votes from the Dems and helping the GOP win.
more like acting like its not an issue, or someone else will come and fix, checks and balances, basically fall in the same trap as republicans,