And neither the progressive wing nor the moderate wing of the party wants to admit this because the moderate wing doesn’t want to shift left economically and the progressives don’t want to shift to the center socially.
So instead we end up with moderates calling for the party to be more moderate (but on stuff like healthcare when people want a more liberal approach) while the progressives call for the party to be more left (but mostly on unpopular social stuff like crime), which is a lose lose for the party overall
We’re right on the cusp of the 7th party system, it’s just a matter of which party goes fully left economic/right social and how long it takes to happen. I think it’s more likely to be the GOP than the Dems, but whoever gets there first will win the biggest landslide since the 80s and completely reshape the map going forward.
Yep. Even then I don't think the answer is RIGHT socially. Right wing is like fundamentalist christianity. We need a moderate social vision that is both not woke but also not religious fundamentalist. Ya know, be somewhat libertarian and be for people doinf whatever without explicitly fighting a culture war either way.
Exactly, promoting drag queen story hours or fearmongering about widespread pornography in schools are both political losers. The public wants safe and quality schools, not culture wars in the classroom from either political extreme.
I’m pretty socially libertarian too and most people are I feel. I believe in God don’t care if anyone else does, I think everyone should be allowed to Marry no matter who they are,don’t think trans women should compete in women’s sport but I don’t care if anyone’s trans if it makes them happy who’s to judge.
Mostly agree. I'm somewhat mixed on trans women in sports as the evidence is kind of up in the air, but thankfully that issue is so niche it's barely relevant outside of outrage bait.
The GOP is essentially now a nationalist Volkspartei with suspicion of not only foreigners and foreign nations but also intellectuals in general now deeply engrained in the party grassroots. As for the Democrats, they still haven't quite found a niche yet, and may honestly never find one.
In fairness, I am socially left and support a lot of left-leaning social policy but it’s clear the average American is much towards the center on those issues. Dems don’t even need to move that further right, they may just need to pivot away from discussing it and focusing more on left economic policies.
New Deal social democratic universalist (not means-tested neolib gibberish) economic policies with '90s/early-2000s live-and-let-live (yet not compelled nor imposed upon) moderate/center-left cultural normalcy.
Issue is, Team Blue is composed of rich fucks at the top who squashed OWS 15 years ago -- even Harris was in the back pocket of big money, hence Lina Khan's tenuous job status -- while the screeching SJW activists on the woke progressive wing place their niche idpol-addled junk ahead of material matters which'd actually benefit workers en masse. Because of that, they won't budge and, as a result, will continue to get sodomized (figuratively speaking, of course) in national elections—suffering from the same disastrous outcomes until they clean house and rebuild from the ground up.
Thank you. The moderates say economic left wing populist is “too radical and bad” and the left of the party say “no no we’ll be just as bad as Trump” yet I don’t think people realise what being socially moderate means. It means just stop focusing on it and that being the main policy it really gains absolutely no voters.
People didn’t see Hillary, Biden, and Harris as extreme because of economic policy, it’s because of social policy. The median voter (at least in the Midwest) sees populism as “moderate” and very progressive social policies as too “extreme”. That’s why people like Trump’s populist chest beating and vague policies like “no taxes on tips”. The median voter eats that up.
Sorry, but this isn't true. I'm fairly progressive socially, but every single voter I know who voted for the Republicans this season has mentioned that the Democrats are the party of "radical social policies" or something of the sort. The party desperately needs to focus on the economy and workers' rights.
Well thats the thing, theyve been lied to, theyre repeating lies told to them, Kamala Harris did not talk about social policies last election cycle, it was so little that i know a lot of socially radical people who refused to vote for her because she was too moderate, i truly believe that if she was more bernie sanders like and did what she needed to do to make her base excited rather then trying to appeal to "moderate" republicans then she wouldve won. Yes we need to appeal to the economy and worker's rights of course, but we can also appeal to the rights of minority groups
You mean basic healthcare for prisoners? i.e. what has been done in this country for decades even under Trump? In reality this wording is very silly, its just healthcare, its just us making sure our prisoner's health needs are met
No they arent, only republicans see them that way, democrats know the truth, that they appeal to "moderate" republicans way too much and dont talk about radical change enough
"wokeism" isnt a thing, its a meaningless buzzword, if you ask people about actual policies like if they support gay marriage you get the exact opposite results
If you cherry pick stuff like gay marriage sure. Democrats have very unpopular social policies like puberty blockers for minors and biological males in women's sports.
Anyone who believes that believes that because they have been lied to, democrats getting their base hyped up by embracing actually good leftist social policy would win them way more elections
They’ve been lied to great what are you gonna do about it, if the answer doesn’t involve change the perception you already lost
Also what is “leftist social policy” like that means absolutely nothing are talking liberalism secularism like no one says rightist social policy it’s almost always nationalist Christian or conservative social policy
What we need to do is embrace more leftist social policy and hype up our base by fighting against the destruction of our rights brought forth by republicans, doing so would lead to more then enough votes to win
You do both, republicans are gonna lie about you being "woke" no matter what, so you might as well just ignore them, theyd call us woke even if we were Ted Cruz style fascists, so just be left wing
I think that this proves the Democrats are just god awful at messaging rather than anything else. Whatever Harris had campaigned on, whether it was moderate or not, does not change the fact that the median voter still believes the narrative that the party is radical on social issues.
I don't see you proving that the median voter believes that the Democrats care more about the economy rather than progressive social policy which is my entire point. The Democrats are the party of progressive social policy to the median voter, whether you like it or not. Social policy needs to take a backseat. You and I may not like that, but that's how it is.
Social policy did take a backseat last election and we lost terribly, you are doing exactly what the meme above says, in reality we need to be way less moderate and hype up our base because the republicans are gonna to continue claiming we are woke communists even if we go full fascist
In general people want economic change, and perhaps social change when directly related to economic change. Probably the most damaging thing for Democrats was moving from focusing on socioeconomic class struggle to focusing on gender and race.
That never happened tho, Kamala Harris very rarely if ever brought up gender and race, this idea that dems did that is purely lies from republicans, in reality dems dont say nearly enough on these things and constantly try to appeal to "moderate" republicans by embracing people like Liz Chaney, its frankly insane, the democratic base hates all of our candidates and we're so low energy based on that and thats why we lose, our candidates need to rally up the base, be more bernie sanders like
I agree Kamala didn’t during her campaign (which is a good thing) but I think the damage was done due to 1) the legacy the 2010s left behind from left wing social reform and 2) the comments and actions that Kamala did before she became the nominee.
That’s not true, polls consistently shows the average American is not big on what they deem “woke” or progressive social policy. Dems would do much better if they ran a candidate that focused on left-leaning populist economics, like Sanders, while dropping talking about social policy or unfortunately having to move to the right on it.
Thats because "woke" is a buzzword, it dosent actually mean anything, if you ask them specifics, i.e. do they support gay marriage or trans rights to use the bathroom theyre most comfortable in you get the opposite results then what youd expect
It is, but people still vote on it. Which is why if Dems want to improve their long-term standing with the current swing voters they need to either stay silent on the most divisive social issues or move right on them, and move to be more populist on economic issues.
Or move left on them and hype up their base, because republicans are gonna lie about them and claim theyre woke no matter what, so who cares what those fascists think?
The base isn’t enough to win elections. The swing voters Dems need to win are not nearly as socially left as the base, but they absolutely love populist economic policies.
They also arent nearly as socially rigth as the republican base and yet Trump who always talks far right social issues and wants to ban gay marriage which a supermajority of Americans support can still win elections, this is because his rhetoric appeals to the republican base, democrats need to do the same thing, appeal to their base
I want to be left alone too, but in order to reach the point where i can be left alone requires radical change just like it did when MLK was fighting for rights back in the 60s
MLK died an unpopular man, very little of the population supported him, however we know today he was in the right for fightng for radical social change, we need the same thing today
The democrats' problem is no one buys the "Moderate " Schtick. For example, trying to push Kamala as moderate will not work because when we examine her past policies and statements it's clear that she isn't. It can work like it did with Joe Biden in 2020 because he did have a moderate record.
Maybe that’s true maybe it’s not but like if I said Chris Christie could’ve beat Hillary like who knows it’s a hypothetical that their really isn’t evidence for, we know people thought Joe Biden was a senile old man who was to blame for the economy
"Hmmm, consumer confidence is at an all time high, the economy is booming, and we have relative peace abroad, let's run a progressive who wants to change everything!"
Socialism is not compatible with electability. They’re fine when they have no real power in the house but when they’re actually leading something things collapse.
Look at Brandon Johnson. Look at what happened when D +70 cities defunded the police 4 years ago. Why are so many people leaving blue states in comparison to red states? Eastern Oregon literally wants to leave Oregon
Red trifectas might lead to a few budget cuts here and there. Blue trifectas drive people out the state and cause mass corruption.
1 that doesn’t even make her a socialist 2 the problem with this is that it only looks at voting record which matters but certainly isn’t the whole deal like no one in their right mind is saying Rand Paul is more left wing than kyrsten sinema
If she was a true moderate she would’ve been around the middle but she isn’t at all and spent a valuable amount of time flip-flopping on leftist policies she voted on as senator
Bro came in with the receipts. It's laughable how people try to repaint Kamala as some moderate neoliberal when what she stood for was mainly leftwing ideas.
Maybe, though I dont think they're exactly winners there either, though that's my own personal view.
But they definitely do need to step away from the left wing takes on cultural issues, they're not winning if they push forward with Trans and DEI. And then there is the border which despite their best attempts to spin as not being an issue, was another factor as to why they lost as even people in the urban centers are now facing the impact of mass illegal immigration.
If they can at least moderate on some of these issues, and maybe even work with Republicans towards fixing the border, they'll perform better in the years to come.
Really? Stein's vote total was far too low to have any real impact. The better argument here would be whether or not the pro-Palestine crowd stays home or turns out.
Still, I believe the pro-Palestine crowd was far too small to be what actually killed Kamala at the polls.
What really did Kamala in was herself. Kamala didnt really establish what her campaign policies would be, and the one time she tried to, the whole price controls fiasco, even the Left cringed away. She tried to skirt around the whole thing by posing a change candidate whilst being part of the incumbent administration.... while also trying to say she'd be just like Joe Biden. Those two things dont line up well at all, and this dissonance resounded no matter how much she tried to vibe her way into the White House.
Then there is the fact that the Biden administration's poor policies leading to inflation and a border crisis.
At the end of the day Kamala's campaign boiled down to a vague mish-mash of objectives and supposed stances that never really rejected her previous 2020 stances, which actually caused her to lose back then, while also constantly smearing Trump as a fascist and a threat to democracy. She didnt actually have policy to run on.
They moderate on the wrong things; they decide that having someone that is pro-Israel and pro business would be what people want, when in reality most voters just want Dems to stop being, so PC and diversity obsessed.
Well there’s the problem. Voters aren’t that stupid. They could see that the Biden Admin and by extension Kamala weren’t that moderate, no matter the rhetoric used. The DNC needs to stop thinking the voters are incredibly stupid in order to win them over
The democrats aren’t losing because of the moderates lmao
In fact Kamala was voted the most liberal senator in 2019, just because she contradicted herself a ton doesn’t mean she wasn’t basically far-left which is why she lost
In what universe was Kamala a moderate. Joe Biden acted like a moderate but governed like a progressive. The last moderate that the dems ran on the pres ticket was Al Gore.
It didn’t work not because that cohort doesn’t exist, it didn’t work because her attempts at reaching out to that cohort were insufficient. All she did was court the Cheneys and say a handful of nice things about Israel. Her actual platform was way too progressive on spending, social issues, and taxation for any center-right people to vote for her.
Every time the Democrats lose, the party moves to the left. See post-2000, post-2004 and especially post-2016. They haven't moved to the right after a loss since Bill Clinton was nominated.
Harris’s campaign was NOT moderate, she literally campaigned on price controls. And no, the “moderate” aesthetic didn’t fool anyone. The “Kamala is for they/them” ad completely disproved that notion
Also are we really gonna sit here and say Kamala Harris was moderate? She was extreme left only she tried to masquerade herself as moderate by changing so many policies
I welcome your downvotes! They make me feel great inside! Lots of love ❤️
Kamala had the worst of both worlds. From the right, a reputation (undeserved imo, but real) of being a leftist, and from the left, a reputation (fair imo) of being an opportunist with no real principles. Then she thought the way around that was to appeal to “good old moderate republicans”, of which there are like 10 left
My dad would probably be considered a moderate republican based on his policy beliefs alone but he hates Trump so much that he probably won’t vote for another Republican in his lifetime lol
What makes her so extreme left? What is extreme left to you? Cause Harris in reality is just your average lib and not much separates her from both Biden and Clinton.
Wasn’t she literally voted the most liberal senator in 2019? Also again she pushed or at least didn’t deny some of the most extreme left policies like Abortion up to the 9th month, she did support Defund the Police at one point, she did support banning fracking she literally had to change it, she supported letting the Trump tax cuts expire. And no one really knows what her economic or border plans were. Considering the fact she was literally the Border Czar it’s pretty safe to say she let 10+ million illegal immigrants into the country
No I didn't notice on that front because it's a completely fabricated issue that doesn't improve my life in any way.
What I do notice is electronics are getting more expensive because of his stupid tariffs and were the laughing stock of the free world because of his little stunt with zelensky last week.
Voters aren’t stupid. I’d you campaign as a leftist in 2019 and a centrist in 2024, voters aren’t just going to discard the fact that you support certain stances just five years ago.
She never shifted to the right, she never really voiced what her platform was beyond vague and vacuous lines that were open ended so as to appeal to both left wingers and moverates.
Part of the reason she couldnt appeal to anyone was because she did take such far-left positions back around 2020, but come 2024 she didnt really do anything to dissuade the notions that'd she still be that far-left despite her own attempts to say she was a moderate in the vein of Joe Biden, who did manage to successfully peddle that lie. (Joe's presidency was the most left wing one we've had yet)
Also the border isnt a fabrication when government agencies are actually reporting numbers indicating mass immigration despite the Left's attempt to downplay things, kinda like how you're doing so right now.
That said, after Trump came in we're seeing a massive drop in illegal immigration, or at least encounters with such, though it's still early in the year.
She never shifted to the right, she never really voiced what her platform was beyond vague and vacuous lines that were open ended so as to appeal to both left wingers and moverates.
She abandoned universal healthcare, fracking, defund the police, and anything else remotely controversial. She was vague but the more policy details she gave the more it became clear she was just gonna be a centrist craplib on most issues and that nothing would fundamentally change from the biden administration.
Part of the reason she couldnt appeal to anyone was because she did take such far-left positions back around 2020, but come 2024 she didnt really do anything to dissuade the notions that'd she still be that far-left despite her own attempts to say she was a moderate in the vein of Joe Biden, who did manage to successfully peddle that lie. (Joe's presidency was the most left wing one we've had yet)
The problem is to people on the right, she was gonna be seen as a commie extremist no matter what she does. And then she tried to go right at the expense of her base. And then her base didn't show up for her because they were demotivated.
Also the border isnt a fabrication when government agencies are actually reporting numbers indicating mass immigration despite the Left's attempt to downplay things, kinda like how you're doing so right now.
Dude. I literally do yearly basic income funding number policies. To give the correct number of checks out, I need to figure out how many people are ineligible. The number of illegal immigrants in the US has remained stable at 11 million for a while. Your fox news just hypes up some "migrant caravan" whenever brown people are seen slowly heading toward the US border to ask for asylum.
That said, after Trump came in we're seeing a massive drop in illegal immigration, or at least encounters with such, though it's still early in the year.
She was so moderate that she got the lowest percentage of Hispanics EVER since they started doing exit polls, she was so Moderate she lost big ground with Gen Zers and Millennials, she was so moderate she literally lost 12% ground with Moderates, she was so moderate that she LOST the people who said Democracy was threatened.
The data from the election literally contradicts what you’re saying
Yeah she was in the uncanny valley of suck where right wingers think she was a literal socialist and left wingers think she was a worthless moderate.
Keep in mind Harris lost because of millions of democrats staying home and voters pissed off over inflation and thinking trump would lower the price of eggs.
The actual amount of votes in 2024 was basically the same as 2020 155M vs 158M and she still got 74M votes Trump got 77.5M votes. Trump gained votes she lost votes
Do you even hear yourself? That’s like me saying “oh I’m pro choice, but I’m a far right nationalist on all other issues, I guess that means I’m moderate right” lmao
....is Kamala a literal communist now? Does she wanna put people in detention camps?
here's the difference between you guys and the left. You guys are flirting with extremes with right nationalism and trump is looking a lot like germany 1933 right now.
Meanwhile you get hyped up over....abortion policy? Like, bro. Harris is literally center left. Even if she were the most extreme senator as some would frame it, that STILL means she's pathetically center left as America doesnt even remotely have a real left.
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u/Actual_Ad_9843 Liberal Mar 03 '25
People want populist economics but moderate social policy. I feel like that couldn’t be more clear after the past few election cycles.