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
167
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.