The Democratic party refused to understand that courting the right doesn't work, and now it's cost them the election
The Democratic party refused to understand that courting the right doesn't work, and now it's cost them the election
I think centrism can win elections though. In my country, the UK, elections are usually won by whichever party captures the centre ground. Keir Starmer won in the UK this year by being centrist. Previously David Cameron and Tony Blair were pretty centrist, and both won multiple elections.
Stop treating rural republicans, chugs, incels, and conservatives, as human beings. The problem is that too many democrats want to go back to the "good old days" of bipartisanship. Those days are long gone.
We have to treat any republican, no matter how "reasonable" as an enemy of democracy and the United States. It doesn't matter if they're family, friends, co-workers, etc. This is who they really are.
One quote from last night stuck with me (though I can't remember who said it): "Republicans have been trying to grow their party for 4 years. Democrats have only been trying to grow their party for 4 months."
They refuse to actually campaign and address people's concerns. They gaslight, minimize, denigrate, guilt trip, and verbally abuse people and then are surprised Pikachu when no one is happy or motivated to vote for them.
"You owe it to your country to vote." "You are a bad person/stupid/russian shill etc if you vote for anyone but Kamala."
These things just stroke your ego and are otherwise thought terminating. They do not get votes. Like holy fuck, if you just listen to people's concerns and talk with them, it tends to work.
But with Citizens united, campaigns focus around a capitalist spending strategy like it's Election Christmas. Bernie Sanders, Stacey Abrams, and AOC all had what I'd call "authentic" campaigns, where they requested help with canvassing and phone calls before they requested donations. Like donations were fine, but most emails and texts were asking for workers, volunteers, and physical help. Those requests were completely absent from Kamala's campaign.
The status quo just doesn't want the common person to have political literacy. If they teach us how to canvas, then we'll do it for someone who isn't status quo. If they show us how to run for office, then we will just run ourselves like AOC did. They are in direct conflict with themselves because they are trying to suppress anything except status quo Dems.
Hey, I'll probably delete my account soon because I shilled so hard for this campaign and it feels so gross. I knew day one enthusiasm was going to sink the dems and pushed back against the apathy as hard as I could. I was pretty devastated when kamala took the stage at the DNC and gave her support for, "a strong military" and talked about her gun or what ever. After that was just going through the motions and convincing myself I wasn't crazy for not wanting trump to win this badly.
The way I see it now, and will remember as we go in the future the DNC offers nothing. That's not fair, they do a lot of good for state and local governments but at a federal level, they will never be able to effect real change. Maybe it's because the way the fed is setup or for what ever other reason. It's not that the leadership has failed, it's that they can't win. I've hopped to lots of different possible solutions for Americans over the years and I guess there is one way out. Until we see liberals migrate away from the cities and take root in the land we will never have a government that represents them. That's where the war will be fought. Until then, even if Trump doesn't crown himself king asshole it's the RNC's game the DNC just resets the board.
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Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.
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Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer a good introductory reading list regarding Marxism if you'd like, but this is a good starting point.
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Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.
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Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.
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Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must save each other.
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So many times I saw people on Lemmy saying they weren't going to vote because of [insert Reason X]
Everytime I told them they should, I was brushed off with some stupid Argument.
Well, I congratulate everyone who did that. You now live in a country headed by someone openly flirting with fascism. I really hope [Reason X] was worth it. And I really hope [Reason X] won't get worse under Trump (it will). You failed to prevent a fascist from raising to power just so you could virtue-signal.
Block, block, upvote, scroll, upvote, block, upvote, upvote, block
If the Republicans are going to call the Democrats communists and socialist regardless of how moderate a campaign Democrats run, Democrats might as well lean further left on economic policy. Appealing to the right does nothing because the right can appeal to the right better than the center-left can
And how did the absolute number of them changed? The chart is meaningless without that - as far as we know the pleading worked, all the moderate Republicans left and are no longer registered Republicans. The percentage of Democrat votes among Republicans got smaller because they not only voted Democrat, they also changes their party registration.
I don't think it happened, I'm just saying these percentages alone aren't proving anything either way.
Democrats just aren't going to be the progressive party. How many times are you going to fail to learn this lesson?
The problem with that strategy is that moderate Republicans don't watch the news. They believe that all other Republicans are just like them and hold all the same beliefs, because all their friends are in the same echo chamber. So then they believe all Republican politicians are the same way. They intentionally don't pay attention to the news because it is full of sensationalism and depressing things they can't personally control like terrorism and mass shootings. They still believe it's important to vote, because that's the patriotic thing to do, and they can just fill the bubbles next to every name marked REP and not have to worry about doing research and learning facts. It's just the easy way and they've lived their whole lives doing things the easy way because of white privilege and generational wealth, but any low points in their lives they will consider to be "hardship" so they "know" that anyone living in poverty is just not trying hard enough, because they personally made it through that "struggle" with barely more than the average effort they usually contribute to anything.
How do I know this? I was raised in a family that is exactly how I described here. The only reason I'm not just like them is that I went to public school and made friends with kids who did not come from the same background. It took about 17 years to finally see all the flawed logic and head-in-sandness before finally breaking free and forging my own path based on my own beliefs.
I mean, there's a whole lot that went wrong, but the big one was subverting the democratic process with primaries that didn't really pick a popular candidate (2016 and 2024).
The primaries are the time for the candidate to energize a base of support. Harris has never energized anybody, and it was silly to think that affection for Biden would carry her.
Conservatives vote in force to signal their loyalty to their chosen community.
Progressives stay home when they perceive that their community doesn't chose them. Harris' vote totals at the end of this will sit somewhere below Biden 2020, for that reason.
Yay oligarchy.
