In light of the recent election, itās clear that the Democratic Party needs a significant leftward shift to better address the needs and concerns of the American people. The partyās centrist approach is increasingly out of touch, limiting its ability to appeal to a broader base and especially to young voters, who are looking for bold and transformative policies. The fact that young men became a substantial part of the conservative voting bloc should be a wake-up callāitās essential that the Democratic Party broadens its appeal by offering real solutions that resonate with this demographic.
Furthermore, one major missed opportunity was the decision to forgo primaries, which could have brought new energy and ideas to the ticket. Joe Bidenās choice to run for a second term, despite earlier implications of a one-term presidency, may have ultimately contributed to the loss by undermining trust in his promises. Had the party explored alternative candidates in a primary process, the outcome could have been vastly different. It is now imperative for the Working Families Party and the Progressive Caucus to push for a stronger, unapologetically progressive agenda within the Democratic Party. The time for centrist compromises has passed, as evidenced by setbacks dating back to Hillary Clintonās 2016 loss, the persistently low approval ratings for Biden since 2022, and Kamala Harrisās recent campaign, which left many progressives feeling alienated. To regain momentum and genuinely connect with the electorate, a clear departure from moderate politics is essential.
This makes me think youāre replying without reading. Iāll make it easy for you though and quote my earlier comment,
Moving on,
This is a good point. Agreed.
Citation needed.
What Iām aware of (e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/07/uncalled-house-senate-races-popular-vote-2024-election/ - https://archive.is/W93jB) says we donāt have the final popular vote counts yet.
No, nonsense doesnāt make sense. But this does make sense. The issue is - if Iām right and the whole country is moving rightward, then Dems can only survive by also moving to the right.
In other words, one interpretation is that Dems and Harris didnāt go far right enough.
I hope thatās wrong though, since it suggests lefties like myself are an endangered breed.
Thatās fair - would be helpful then if you state what you do mean. Or in other words, what you think would be effective in āmobilizing and energizing the base.ā
It wouldnāt - if that had happened. But - while it is true Clinton tried to get moderate Republicans on board back in 2016, she really didnāt shift at all for them. Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/while-wooing-republicans-clinton-sticks-progressive-policy-n628501
Again, itās more than just a random comment.
Hmmā¦ I donāt recall this actually. Citation needed.
Well, you canāt count it as that, but for a different reason - youāve failed to prove anything wrong, let alone decisively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
The final vote totals are not in yet, true, but Iām going off what information we have now.
Well, the good news is that you are completely wrong.
Harris lost for two very simple reasons. First, because she attached herself to a status quo that many people were dissatisfied with. Second, because she attempted your shitty strategy of shifting right to win over republicans, when republicans are perfectly satisfied with the party theyāve got.
Youāre operating on lots of false assumptions, like this idea that who people vote for just comes down to whoās closer to them on the political compass or something. Honestly, Harris couldāve run to the right of Trump on every issue and Trump supporters still wouldnāt vote for her. Thatās just how reality is, and your ideology is out of line with it.
Running a progressive campaign with progressive policy. Not punching left. Not supporting genocide. Not bragging about Dick Cheney being on your side.
Even just calling Republicans weird was actually working but she couldnāt even stick with that because she was too concerned with winning over the mythical moderate republican vote.
Really?
Yep. So that happened very close to Biden dropping out, hence I think I missed it in all the noise about the change.
Itās good to have source though. In this case it provided additional context - the comments were limited to the top two, unlike Clinton who insulted potential voters. (Actually letās not kid ourselves - these folks almost certainly voted against her in the end.)
Thatās not unreasonable, but Iād argue itās premature. If the results change, that could invalidate the conclusion.
The sources I referenced seem to disagree with you, but after all they may yet be proven to have jumped to conclusions too soon as well.
Like I said, itās premature to conclude this.
Iāll grant you this - if the final numbers show that the GOP didnāt get more than 2020, and Harris ended up getting a lot less than Biden did (on the order of tens of millions), then Iāll concede and agree.
Though Iāll through in an additional wrench - Iād want to see what happens with the popular vote in California specifically. To rule out things like Dem voters in Republican or battleground states getting their votes suppressed as being the cause of the GOP win.
But if the numbers say differently - that more people voted this year overall, for example, then Iād argue that supports my original (and deeply disappointing) case. (Iām not sure year if 2020 is the right comparison either due to the effects of the pandemic - that might have been an unrepeatable one off. Iād also want to compare to 2008 or 2012 after adjusting the numbers for population changes.
Agreed. I confess that why his core voters like him so much remains a bit of mystery to me - even the most extreme on the right havenāt been able to displace this guy, a new york liberal who basically stole their playbook and used the bits he liked.
But this puzzles me less than a Clinton and Biden supporting Dem turning red this year.
Like Clinton did in 2016, as per the NBC source I referenced earlier? We know how that turned out.
Yup, agreed. I can see Palestine/Gaza indeed being a sticking point. I still will never understand those folks who voted GOP because they didnāt like Biden/Harris on Gaza - which many claimed to do as per https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/hamtramck-donald-trump-arab-american-muslim - but I could easily understand them sitting out or voting third party. And with Dick Cheneyās history, that might influence single issue voters negatively who might otherwise be primed to want to believe in the best of intentions from Harris.
Of course, Harris was between a rock and a hard place on this issue - but we donāt need to rehash all of that. From whatās coming out now, itās clear that Harris wasnāt able to strike the necessary balance and win over this important voting bloc - such as https://www.voanews.com/a/in-historic-shift-american-muslim-and-arab-voters-desert-democrats/7854995.html and https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/11/7/dont-dare-blame-arab-and-muslim-americans-for-trumps-victory - and I certainly canāt rule out the possibility that your suggestion here might have been enough to swing things the other way.
If thatās false - then how do people choose who to vote for? What else would be the measure that they use?
Well, they also tend to follow endorsements (hence why AOC and Sanders endorsed Harris), and do things like punish the incumbent if the economy feels really bad, etc. Iād agree that closeness isnāt the sole thing.
Per your citation it was just the two folks who are heading to the White House, not Republicans generally.
Actually, she did - see https://www.npr.org/2024/10/30/nx-s1-5170908/harris-argues-that-trump-poses-a-threat-to-democracy-in-the-final-days-of-the-race & https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/15/harris-slams-trump-in-pennsylvania-as-us-election-race-heats-up
Christ. If Hilary Clinton is your idea of a progressive candidate and going on SNL is your idea of mobilizing the base, then you are just on a wavelength that is so far removed from mine that frankly I donāt think thereās any real possibility of a productive conversation.
Seriously, come on. People have all sorts of reasons for chosing a candidate. This is so obvious that I shouldnāt have to explain it.
For the record, Clinton wasnāt progressive enough for me (but I would have indeed settled on her back in 2016) and I donāt watch SNL (though considering how many do, I still think itās great outreach).
But Iām not the only one who thinks this way. Hereās a great post - https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/18340229 - describing how much and how well Dems turned out this year (with the estimate being that Dems will have actually beat their 2020 numbers once the popular vote count is finished). Itās just that red voters turned out in even higher numbers this year.
Since the final popular vote tally is still unknown, it is speculative, but if itās right, then I think itās enough to disprove your contention (that Harris lost because turnout from Dems was low because they were turned off by the lack of progressive policies and Gaza and etc - this canāt be the reason if turnout went up instead of down!).
Thatās still speculation, but whether itās more people voting Trump or fewer people voting Democrat is a moot point. If the Dems moving right led to the outcome that more people voted Trump, then it was still a losing strategy.
On that last point - Iām moving to the view that youāre right - it is a losing strategy.
As another commenter in this thread pointed out, https://lemmy.world/comment/13326761 , itās the economy that was the biggest factor. That will always shift wins to the opposing party.
This tells me that a) 2024 might have just been unwinnable, as the economy really really sucked due to factors out of the control of anyone in the USA (Ukraine war still having devastating impacts on the US economy today).
But it also suggests that if we still have all the same elections that we expect to in 2026 and 2028, then Dems would be able to make a major comeback without changing much as this idiot trashes the economy. Alas, that feels like a really big if right now, and it shouldnāt be.
Funny where you cut off the part where I list some of the other reasons. Iād agree that itās obvious that people have all sorts of reasons for choosing a candidate, but what didnāt compute for me is why someone who would be more progressive - or even just pro-Gaza - would support the anti-progressive who wanted to let Israelās prime minister āfinish the jobā, so to speak.
Well, it can be worthwhile explaining it anyways sometimes. Often Iāve seen two people who actually agree but keep arguing because of semantics or the like, but if itās all laid out plainly then these tend to quickly come to an agreement. Other times, itās useful just to see how far the āwavelengthsā are apart, as you put it.
Very few people supported Trump because they thought heād be better on Gaza. Some may have chosen to take a gamble on literally anyone because the Dems are so bad on it, but I doubt that represents a major bloc.
On the other hand, I think it does represent a major factor when it comes to the economy. People are dissatisfied with the status quo and Kamala ran on the status quo. Trump was able to present himself as an alternative, and he was the only other choice.
I honestly think she could have not just mobilized more democrats, but also peeled off more republicans by seperaring from Bidenās economic policies and presenting a further left alternative. Not everyone who votes republican is ideologically committed.
From the sources I referenced earlier though it seems like may have been what broke the core three swing states - Arab voters who backed Biden in 2020 flipped to the GOP in 2024. In absolute terms the margins by which Penn and Michigan turned red are tiny - so itās easy to believe that winning over the Arab vote would have made all the difference in the EC.
That was the one major issue that I wasnāt sure on w.r.t. Harris. It seems to me like she did everything else right except that. Now, she was between a rock and a hard place there - but perhaps she should have counted on the Jewish voting block staying loyal no matter what and then appeased this group by much stronger measures.
Anyways, I saw a Harris win as being the last chance to implement a plan to reform the entire system and give progressives and far-left folks a fair chance, starting with a bunch of new constitutional amendments that would get ratified. But now I fear the exact opposite may happen. It all depends on who takes the House majority.
She did truly so much stuff wrong. The only reason I thought she had any chance at all was because Trump is such a shitty candidate that the bar was very low. She was a bad candidate who never wouldāve won a normal primary, like 2020 showed, and she underperformed downballot candidates all over the place, including Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where democratic senators won or are winning, and which combined make up enough EVs to win (not to mention PA where the senate candidate outperformed Harris but lost by a hair, or NC which elected a democratic governor by a wide margin).
Losing Arab voters was probably enough to cost her the election, but even with them itās doubtful she wouldāve won. There was a 14 point swing among Hispanic voters compared to last election, likely because of the Democrats pivoting right on immigration, and the economy was votersā biggest concern where Harrisā messaging was very weak. Fundamentally, this whole strategy that they tried that you apparently like of dismissing everyoneās concerns except the moderate republicans who were never going to vote democrat is completely self-defeating.
Iām open to the idea that there were other mistakes made, but ideally the list of this should at least be spelled out.
Iāll start. Gaza. Also, https://theintercept.com/2024/11/07/harris-trump-election-immigration-border/
Well, 2020 was not a normal primary, with āelectabilityā being too much of a concern as per https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/electability-eye-beholder-what-hell-do-we-actually-know-about-n1020576
Hmm. This is a good point but I think that there may be another explanation for this. These races wouldnāt have been so tied to Gaza or the immigration/deportation and border issues, so itās possible Harris took a big it from that while downballot, there wasnāt any hit. And the underperformance isnāt that wide - the GOP won most of the battleground Senate races to take majority control over the Senate.
That statement contradicts itself. Either losing them cost her the election - meaning that having them on board would have saved her and lifted her to a win - or they didnāt, because they werenāt enough to win.
This is another puzzling point. Itās true that there was a shift here - see for example https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/01/31/biden-border-immigration-bills-congress-2024/72399226007/ - but while heās to the right of where say Obama was, heās still to the left of orange voldemort. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68428154 and https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-06-18/in-an-immigration-pivot-biden-announces-plan-for-undocumented-spouses as compared to https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/trump-2024-immigration-policy-mass-deportations-stephen-miller/
Talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face.
I mean we know some did, since they told us. Liz Cheney for example voted Harris.
Youād have to list out which concerns got dismissed?
Obviously I donāt agree - dismissing everyoneās concerns does seem like a bad idea - but I also donāt think everyoneās concerns were dismissed. Rather, Harris supported a $15 minimum wage floor - https://ca.news.yahoo.com/harris-voices-support-15-minimum-172336812.html - and there were hopes that this could go even higher once she was elected. She also supported Medicare For All in this election - https://abcnews.go.com/Health/kamala-harris-stands-health-care-issues-vies-democratic/story?id=112159503
Of course one of the most prominent issues was Gaza, but Iād argue that even here the concerns werenāt dismissed, not with Harris saying that she will not be silent on human suffering in Gaza as per https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kamala-harris-tailors-ad-messaging-on-gaza-israel-to-sway-michigan-pennsylvania-voters/ar-AA1toi71 - but this message simply was not strong enough.
Waiting on final numbers, but from the unsourced estimates in the other post, it seems like this is a false narrative. Rather than former Dems voting red like I first thought, it seems previous non-voters turned out red instead. As to whyā¦
I think this is the only point where we agree on. Iām seeing elsewhere, e.g. https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-economy-immigration-11db37c033328a7ef6af71fe0a104604 , that this is exactly why some shifted.
But as VP Harris probably couldnāt have divorced herself from the economy.
So 2020 was not a normal primary, but one held in 2024 wouldnāt have been either. I think we are agreed on this point - had an actual primary taken place, that weakness would have been exposed, and someone other than Harris - who could more easily distance themselves from the most disliked parts and policies of the Biden-Harris administration - could have carried the torch, improving the odds of a win.