Summary

Following Kamala Harris’s unexpected defeat, Democratic leaders are scrutinizing their party’s failures, particularly with working-class voters.

Figures like Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy, and Ro Khanna argue the party lacks a strong economic message, especially for those frustrated with stagnant mobility and neoliberal policies.

Sanders emphasized Democrats’ disconnect from working-class concerns, while Murphy criticized the party’s unwillingness to challenge wealthy interests.

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison announced he won’t seek re-election, leaving the party’s leadership in flux as Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries prepare to assume top roles amid a Republican resurgence.

  • @[email protected]
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    122 days ago

    The question is: how are they gonna get back on track?

    One thing to remember is that Democrats, just like Republicans, are sponsored by the rich, and have their hands tied against taking drastic measures that would actually improve lives of common people against the interest of businesses. This is primarily why key economic points they rallied with never came to fruition.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 day ago

      They even go as far as to have poisoned pill dems that are there to tank any change and take the blame. Joe Libreman, Olympia Snowe were likely not the first. Just the first time I saw that trick. I was dumbfounded when everyone let Manchin and Sinema rob that football like Lucy, again!

      I remember when Biden was caught hot mic’ed saying “Nothing would fundamentally change” to a room full of rich donors during his first run. He already knew that he wasn’t gonna do a fucking thing to help anyone but his donors.

      Surprise pekachu all those who forgotten the first three card montie “find the single payer” trick during the Obama years.

      The system is working exactly as designed. Repetitively even.

  • @[email protected]
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    21 day ago

    You still haven’t figured it out yet? The middle hates echo chambers. The right and left both have echo chambers but they vote against the one that seems more disconnected from reality. By controlling speech and removing content as a knee-jerk reaction to any inconvenient information or opinion as a habit, the left have separated themselves from reality more than the right, by at least a little.

    This comes off as threatening to people. Because a mob of people disconnected from reality that will simply silence anyone’s defense of themselves feels like a situation that could get out of hand. And everyone has experienced having their speech controlled. They don’t like it.

    All politics is a proxy for culture war. And you lost a culture war by being controlling assholes. Watch you try to silence me right now. Just know that that habit going forward will make you lose more.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 hours ago

        The left bans information too. Quite a lot. And actually they didn’t ban books. The government simply did not provide books. You just demonstrated that you are disconnected from reality right then. On every issue the left is disconnected from reality.

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】
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          2 hours ago

          You’re fully delusional. The right bans books. Period. They have dumbass gullible morons combing school libraries looking for “other” content and then bitching and moaning until the library removes the books. That’s a book ban.

          In my lifetime they’ve pushed to ban rap music, video games, porn, rock and roll, dungeons and dragons, mr Rogers, and mr potatoe head. Apparently you have no clue what you’re talking about.

          “The left” doesn’t give a fuck what you watch or read because we’re not weird fucking losers who don’t know how anything works.

    • Gloomy
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      11 day ago

      Okay, I’ll not downvotes but try to engage.

      The right I activly holding back information from their echo chamber that can objectively view as factual (climate change is the most prominent example that comes to mind). So they are indeed ignoring reality in a messuarable way. Why do you think the right is not perseved as a thread then? For example the thread of ignoring climate change or science in general? Do you think “the middle” doesn’t see that as a problem?

      How, in your option has the left removed itself from reality? Can you provide some concrete examples please?

      I can think of examples for the silencing both on the right or the left. In regards to the left I’m thinking of speakers at university’s beeing canceled or yelled over. And I do see how speach controll might be seen as silencing. Is it a thing? Where I am from it seems to be more of a right wing point pretending that they are speach-controlled while nobody is forcing speech on anybody, just suggesting more inclusive ways of speaking (let’s use pronouns as an example).

      So I guess what I am saying is: Is the perception of the left grounded in reality or has it been crafted by right wing propaganda? And since the answer has to be “yes to both”, do you think it’s more grounded in reality than it is constructed by the right?

  • @[email protected]
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    62 days ago

    At what point do we learn that voting for progress is an illusion, a fable, taught and told to us to prevent us from organizing socially to effect real change?

    • @[email protected]
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      11 day ago

      Yeah. Voting is retarded. Yet if anyone on the right tells you that republican democracy is a failed concept that creates a false sense of control and corruption you call them un-democratic and a nazi. But if you come to that conclusion yourself its ok.

    • @[email protected]
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      222 days ago

      “Kamala is part of the Biden administration, which most people, in my opinion, found to be awful.”

      Define “awful”. I’ll help: you’re about to find out.

      "We couldn’t grasp who she was and what policies she wanted. "

      It helps a lot of if you pay attention and listen to the candidate. Maybe look up her past voting record and background.

      "Essentially, the average person wouldn’t know what she wanted or who she is unless she actually did an interview on a podcast that they could watch on YouTube. "

      Please tell me you are joking. That you really truly believe that because she didn’t go on a specific podcast, she lost? Like seriously people are so fucking lazy they couldn’t search “Kamala Harris interview” or “Kamala Harris policies”.

      Fucking sheep.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 day ago

        Define “awful”. I’ll help: you’re about to find out.

        And there’s your problem. You shouldn’t have to point that out, she and the Democratic party should have been talking about the economy non-fucking-stop once she had polling that said people only give two shits about the economy.

        She should have been saying, yeah I know inflation sucked balls but we’re going to go after the assholes who price gouged you. She should have said, yeah, egg prices went up because of the bird flu and here’s the plan to make sure we tell these mass chicken farms to be better. She should have said, hey I know your rent is too damn high but here’s something actually realistic we can do about it. Every. God. Damn. Day. until she got inaugurated.

        And as for the “Maybe look up her past voting record and background”, well guess what? They don’t and we know they don’t because we have a lot of social science research showing that when you’re lower working class, when you’re done working two - three jobs or a 12 hour physically demanding job trying to make ends meet, tired out of your god damn skull, and you can’t afford to pay your rent or food or internet that you need to actually get another job because the one you have is still laying you off. Yeah, you got that 17% raise that the rank and file got over the four years but to you that basically amounts to another 2 bucks an hour meanwhile you rent’s gone up 500% in four years.

        I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’m not looking shit up after running a double shift dealing with asshole customers complaining about how prices are too high and some white dude spouting off racist bullshit to my face. I’m not that now and I have a job where I can post on Lemmy in the middle of the day and have that luxury of being able do that research. Most American’s don’t have that mental bandwidth to do that and one as I put up above is going to give two shits about the BLS report saying that wage growth was the highest in decades when they’re literally struggling.

        Democrats are often derided for being elite and honestly there’s truth to that, Democrats, especially the people in leadership really fucking suck at actually talking to people and really suck at empathy and they have to realize that, I’m sorry but the American public isn’t the brightest, they don’t have the greatest attention span, they’re tired and just want someone to tell them they’re going to be able to eat and have a roof over their heads and not have to struggle so damn much and someone’s actually got their back. Even if it’s pretty little lies.

        • @[email protected]
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          52 days ago

          She should have been saying, yeah I know inflation sucked balls but we’re going to go after the assholes who price gouged you.

          Funnily enough, she did!

          But ok, you keep on ranting. Good rant!

          • @[email protected]
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            2 days ago

            Damn, you’re right, she did mention that in one single interview and I had forgotten until you mentioned it.

            And that’s from someone the regularly follows politics and reads the paper everyday. Now imagine the guys I’m talking about above, what make you think they’re going to actively go out and seek that info and retain it. Again Every. God. Damn. Day. until inauguration.

            All I can see is that this is why Democrats are going to keep losing because instead of coming down to talk to the people and not over them and dismissing with reports and numbers and can’t accept the fact that they have a lot of blame along with these low info voters who also have a lot to be desired. Unable to adapt to the changing landscape of how people consume news and information too. But hey, never learn Democrats, never learn.

            • @[email protected]
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              120 hours ago

              All I can see is that this is why Democrats are going to keep losing because instead of coming down to talk to the people and not over them and dismissing with reports and numbers and can’t accept the fact that they have a lot of blame along with these low info voters who also have a lot to be desired.

              I agree with the sentiment, at least in principle. Democrats need to reject neo-liberal (or is it really neo-con?) policies and start meeting regular working people where they are at. To my mind both AOC and Sanders have articulated this extremely well.

              But… this is a two-way street. A lot of voters are low-information because they simply don’t prioritize voting and elections. There may be decent reasons for this but not voting or just voting for whoever says things that make you feel good in the moment is not taking responsibility as a citizen and it certainly isn’t voting for your own interests. Things don’t get better that way. We need to fight.

              I know I know… chicken meet egg.

              • @[email protected]
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                117 hours ago

                I guess that’s where we differ in opinion. I honestly don’t see it as a chicken/egg situation, I 100% put the communication issue on the leadership.

                When I lead a team, it’s incumbent upon me to ensure communication is flowing and that my team understands what I am providing and asking for from them. Success is ours, failures are mostly mine.

                That’s how I see this situation at least.

                • @[email protected]
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                  115 hours ago

                  Interesting.

                  I 100% put the communication issue on the leadership.

                  The difference is that when you lead a team your team does not elect you. You are in a position of power and accountable for their failures.

                  Our representatives are not our leaders, they are elected by us to represent our interests. Very different power dynamic and the distinction, at least ot me, is critical. We have to make informed choices about who they are and if they will adequately act on our behalf. In order to do that we need to put effort into understanding them, their background, and their choices. It’s a bit like when you choose to purchase something or even, say, commit to living in a particular city. It’s not up to the city to adequately communicate to you why you should live there, although that certainly doesn’t hurt. It’s mainly up to you to establish whether that place is right for you.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 day ago

              Damn, you’re right, she did mention that in one single interview and I had forgotten until you mentioned it.

              And yet, if it were an important issue to you, important enough that your vote hinged on it, I’m quite sure you and every other voter could head to google and go “Kamala Harris price gouging” to find out.

              The argument is basically “Yes she was doing what I wanted but she didn’t tell me personally so I voted for the other guy.”

        • @[email protected]
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          2 days ago

          Okay, you’re full of compete shit then.

          Literally type in Harris policies and you get Harris’s website on the issues, BBC “what are Harris and Trump’s policy”, CBS “Kamala Harris’ policy plans and platform on key issues for the 2024 election”, and so on.

          If you’re going to lie, don’t lie about something so easily disproven and being proud that you’ve admitted you’ve got time to look shit up and still be a low info voter. That’s just pathetic.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 days ago

          I couldn’t find any podcast with her, so I barely knew who she actually was.

          LOL. I can see how this might be a problem for you. Do you make major life decisions this way too?

          “I couldn’t find a podcast detailing the make and model of car I was interested in, so I really couldn’t make a decision and decided I would just have to stay home. I was PARALYZED I tell you!”

          “I was trying to decide between two job offers but no podcast was available so I just stayed unemployed”

          People type in “Kamala Harris policies”, yet, you could barely find anything

          You mean like the very first result here: https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

          I grant, it requires you actually READ. How troubling.

  • JaggedRobotPubes
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    963 days ago

    Democrats are basically a conservative party, a depressing wet blanket to the people’s spirits, and Republicans are illegitimate, unhinged extremists.

    Democrats are objectively superior in every way and they still suck ass.

    Sure would be nice if there was a party that actually represented Americans instead of company profits.

    • @[email protected]
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      333 days ago

      They have got to stop talking down to voters, gaslighting voters, and they need to give people something to vote FOR instead of against. I find Kamala to be a good speaker and easy to understand but people saying she’s using word salad…at first I didn’t get what that was all about, especially when Trump makes absolutely no sense whatsoever but I think I might get it now. She’s talking to well educated people but a huge swath of this country is not well educated, uses social media extensively, and maybe it actually does sound like word salad to them when democrats start using words that normal people never use and probably don’t understand. If you never went to college and only graduated high school because standards have been reduced, maybe she kind of sounds like an alien sometimes. They need an economic message that speaks to people who have been getting crushed more and more since the 80s and they need to say it in terms we can all understand. And when voters tell them “this is how I feel” for the love of God they need to stop saying “no you don’t”.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 days ago

          Yes perfect, thank you for this. I literally majored in Linguistics but didn’t even think of this because school was so long ago. The ability to code switch where someone could use the professional language while governing but colloquialisms and everyday language while giving public statements would be nice, to be better understood. We all understand basic informal American English but not everyone has a great education.

      • dream_weasel
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        22 days ago

        How can you NOT appear to talk down to someone who is Trump vocabulary / concept or less about issues that are actually complex and nuanced? Trump can talk out of both sides of his mouth to different groups with radically conflicting messages tuned to the audience. If anyone did that while trying to cater to the left, you would be immediately strung up for being duplicitous while at the same time being excoriated for being vague and nonspecific with your plans. No “concepts of a plan” are going to fly for someone running outside the Republican party.

        Trump is basically bowling with the gutter guards up and it’s because the Republican electorate is angry and not exactly… uh… discerning when it comes to complex or academic issues.

        • @[email protected]
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          93 days ago

          If you’re uneducated and someone is speaking more formally it can be, depending on the topic and the word choice.

      • @[email protected]
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        133 days ago

        So national health care, workers rights, shifting the tax burden to the richest and most fortunate of us, eliminating monopolies and enforcing anti-trust, eliminating corruption among politicians and judges aren’t something to vote FOR? That’s a lot of what Harris’s platform was.

  • @[email protected]
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    663 days ago

    They didn’t show the entire tweet chain. Murphy starts off saying we should abandon neoliberalism which is good. But then finished by uncritically supporting men’s rights, abandoning social issues, and abandoning action on climate change.

    He’s calling for Democrats to move to the right. The big tent he’s pitching is fascism. A true populist movement that champions socialism and progressive causes can bring people together while also championing these issues.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 days ago

        Murphy starts off saying we should abandon neoliberalism which is good.

        The left has never fully grappled with the wreckage of fifty years of neoliberalism, which has left legions of Americans adrift as local places are hollowed out, rapacious profit seeking cannibalizes the common good, and unchecked new technology separates and isolates us.

        But then finished by uncritically supporting men’s rights, abandoning social issues, and abandoning action on climate change.

        But here’s the thing - then you need to let people into the tent who aren’t 100% on board with us on every social and cultural issue, or issues like guns or climate.

        Listen to poor and rural people, men in crisis. Don’t decide for them.

        It fits the description to a T. We don’t have time for 50% or 0% action on climate change. The window to avert key tipping points that will have catastrophic consequences for the Earth’s climate is now.

        As a trans person, I am not interested in 50% or 0% of my rights. I would like my right to exist, 100% of the time.

        We should push back on some of the more fringe men’s rights groups. No one is entitled to a state mandated girlfriend. But it is probably worth understanding how patriarchy harms men because inequality harms us all.

        • @[email protected]
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          16 hours ago

          On climate:

          But here’s the thing - then you need to let people into the tent who aren’t 100% on board with us on every social and cultural issue, or issues like guns or climate.

          He doesn’t say anything else on climate, and this is not “abandoning action on climate change.” The people already in the tent don’t agree on everything, and they have not “abandoned action” because of it.

          On men’s rights:

          Meanwhile, men tumble into a different kind of identity crisis, as the patriarchy, society’s primary organizing paradigm for centuries, rightly crashes. The right pushes an alluring dial back. The left says “get over it”. Again, a refusal to listen/offer responsible solutions.

          This is not “uncritically supporting men’s rights.”

          But it is probably worth understanding how patriarchy harms men because inequality harms us all.

          Sure, if that’s how you need to frame it to fit your worldview go ahead. Just please try to find agreement when feminist framing is not used, because it usually won’t be.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 days ago

          Exactly. Trans rights, radical climate solutions, but also yeah we need to work with young men to help them feel less isolated and vulnerable to the far right. We need to be talking with rural people as people not just over them

  • @[email protected]
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    1743 days ago

    We need an actual left party.

    Tired of this fascism vs conservatives masquerading as “left vs right” bullshit.

    Pelosi sucks, Bernie should be in charge of the party with AOC under his wing until he dies, it’s their only chance.

    • @[email protected]
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      923 days ago

      As a Swede, calling the Democrats a party on the left is insane, it is center/right and the Republicans are far right.

      • @[email protected]
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        123 days ago

        Well that’s why it’s all relative. Sweden is far left to the US, and your far right people are center.

        Opposite in Germany again. It’s all subjective to the locale.

        • @[email protected]
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          393 days ago

          It’s not subjective. The U.S. left is why 40 hour work weeks and SSI exists.

          We’ve just never been represented by the duopoly elite/land owners (by design) and instead have had to strike and agitate through those means rather than the ballot box.

          In other words, the working class isn’t represented nationally and never has been outside a few radicals like Bernie and AOC.

          • @[email protected]
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            233 days ago

            The U.S. left from EIGHTY YEARS AGO is why those things exist. There’s been a drift to the right over time. It has RAPIDLY accelerated in the last 50 years. The present day left has been dragged right by trying to be polite in the face of so many evils. I’m not promoting both side-isms, the democrats are still far preferable to the republicans, but the greed and corruption are not exclusive to the right. The system is broken and my only hope of the incoming disaster is that it may get so bad that we are forced to enact real and substantive change. I only think that will happen if the horrors that come are extreme enough to defeat the current apathy of the country. GOP voter numbers went up less than a percent, DNC voter numbers went down over 12%.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 days ago

              Yeah, even a real fucking primary would probably have helped.

              I really hope it won’t have to come to physical conflict, because we won’t win that with a 12% deficit either.

          • @[email protected]
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            3 days ago

            I think they’re saying that some nations’ options are subjectively dubbed “left and right” based on relative comparison, not the ideologies themselves.

              • @[email protected]
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                93 days ago

                For those who don’t know the difference between practice and ideology it is. Your comments lead me to believe you have a pretty solid grasp of political philosophy.

                I don’t think the comment above was an attempt at justification, but an explanation of why we use the terms left and right subjectively.

                • @[email protected]
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                  133 days ago

                  I get that. But the subjectivity is lack of political education and media bias.

                  In other words, it’s not subjective, really. It’s a misnomer that’s been spread through propaganda by both parties. And repeated ad nauseam by the media.

                  People need to understand that the democrats are centrists drifting right, in order to understand that there are other real options, like organizing, striking, and community action/mutual aid. Otherwise, everyone is going to sit on their hands for the next four years, praying that the democrats save them.

  • Deconceptualist
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    3 days ago

    The Dems kept making big proclamations about how the economy has rebounded under the Biden administration. But no one except the wealthy has benefited from that. It felt genuinely insulting every single time. Average folks in the US keep seeing bills, grocery prices, subscription services, and especially housing costs rise steadily. People are so worried about paying for these core things.

    But the party never listened to Bernie and just kept saying “look, we fixed it” when they clearly didn’t, and I believe that drove away voters.

    • @[email protected]
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      The Dems kept making big proclamations about how the economy has rebounded under the Biden administration. But no one except the wealthy has benefited from that.

      And that’s just a microcosm of Dem policy for the last ~35y. We get it, Democrats are better at government, we all fucking know it. What everyone has been waiting for is a Democrat who’ll come along and say “the top 15% of the country has taken 90% of the wealth over the last 35y, it’s time for everyone to share in the prosperity.”

      People are sick of neoliberal business as usual, this is why Hillary lost, this is why Kamala lost. This is why every single Dem candidate from here on out is going to be viewed with skepticism and voters will continue to stay home. People would rather hand the country to a narcissistic kleptocrat and hope for the best than accept four more years of neoliberal business as usual while they try to eke out a meagre existence with ever increasing costs of rent, food, healthcare, energy, insurance and corporate profits.

      • @[email protected]
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        313 days ago

        The Democrats funnel literally hundreds of billions of dollars to things like student loan relief, school lunches, and safety net infrastructure in general. The Republicans actively prevent hundreds of billions more that would have been spent to help the lower and middle class, sabotage any hope for universal Healthcare, and actively sabotage things we all rely on (USPS, PBS, the pandemic response program a year before covid). And the voters have the audacity to blame the Dems for not fixing everything. It’s a joke.

        • @[email protected]
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          52 days ago

          Student loan relief isn’t a great message for a lot of people though. It’s a handout of 10s of Thousands of dollars to people that were able to go to college. That means fuck all to those that never had the chance. College is more expensive than ever, and nothing has been done to stop the massive increase in costs.

        • @[email protected]
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          333 days ago

          This is why Liberals doomed America to fascism.

          Wealth inequality is worse today than it was during the gilded age a century ago, and you still believe that the Dem’s efforts were good enough to counteract 50 years of neoliberalism; the very conditions establishment democrats helped create. Liberals stuck their head in the sand and promised 4 more years of drowning, so voters chose the fascist who promised to tear it all apart.

          • @[email protected]
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            143 days ago

            I just don’t have unrealistic expectations for my candidates. Dems can’t magic away the effects of climate change. Nor can they “fix” capitalism. Dissapointment in the truth doesn’t justify voting for comforting lies.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 day ago

              I just have realistic expectations of my elected representatives actually advocating for my interests in government.

              Dems could sure accelerate our energy transition away from fossil fuels towards green energy with more initiatives like the IRA and GND.

              Dems could sure undo Reaganomics and Citizens United, audit our contracts with corporations so they work for us, break up monopolies, and a heck of a lot of other things to get us moving in the right direction.

              Truth is that a growing portion of Americans support these. Leftist populism is on the rise. And we might have a good chance to organize this time around because Dems have stopped telling those comforting lies to their base. Kamala didn’t do what Obama did. The Dems’ true nature was seen far and wide.

              Dems are the ones smothering themselves with comforting lies, and the disappointint truth is that they’ll keep losing elections in favor of elected representatives who actually listen to their base: Republicans.

              • @[email protected]
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                18 hours ago

                I think you’re giving people way too much credit, both citizens and representatives. “Did Joe Biden drop out” as a search term spiked in the US on election day.

            • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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              203 days ago

              Nor does it justify not voting. However, we are not dealing with rational people because they are people and not rational.

              • @[email protected]
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                3 days ago

                People don’t see, we imagine. Mommy Fortuna’s gotta put a fake horn on a real unicorn.

        • @[email protected]
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          163 days ago

          Yeah but as a white man who doesn’t need government assistance, I really didn’t like it when people who needed assistance got assistance and those people weren’t me.

          /S

        • Deconceptualist
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          103 days ago

          Right? That should be the message. Average folks appreciate essential services if you press them. But there have been enough scandals and mismanagement (esp. schools and healthcare) that they’re very distrustful that their tax dollars are being used correctly. I don’t know if it’s audacity so much as they just don’t understand that the GOP has been actively sabotaging our systems for decades. But the Dems never seem to call that out, like they’re afraid to name and shame their opponents as liars and swindlers.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 days ago

          Most people aren’t aware of stuff like this. They see, at most, a talking head or a topline message like, “Biden White House declares victory on economy.” Then they look at their personal finances and pour another drink and mutter, “same shit, different day”.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 days ago

          As someone looking from the outside. It smells a bit like voters decided it was easier to swallow that everyone hurts. Even of themselfs hurt a bit more. Instead of seeing the wealthy prosper wildly, and only the common people hurt.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 days ago

            I think that was a huge part of Trump’s appeal. It’s hard to be happy about watching the wealthy drain the country for 35y while you’re stuck working at Wal-Mart or a gig job and effectively treading water while waiting for a medical emergency to bankrupt you or for prices on everyday goods to outpace you. It’s a choice between getting fucked over while a certain class of person gets richer or fucking everybody over and that appealed to a whole lot of people.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 days ago

      If you say so. I went shopping this weekend and every store was crowded with people. Seems like the economy rebounded to me.

      • Deconceptualist
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        3 days ago

        Your anecdote is only the surface level. People may be spending more at shops because they expect inflation will keep going up and the things they need will just get more expensive. And they don’t expect they can save for larger purchases like housing or renovations so they’re buying lower level items while they can afford them. These sort of shallow effects might look like a prospering economy on the outside but they can mask an uglier core.

  • @[email protected]
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    693 days ago

    If we get a consensus on the Left it will be the first time ever.

    “I can’t support Bernie! He’s not a real Socialist, he’s a Social Democrat!!”

    • @[email protected]
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      22 days ago

      Hey, I’m pretty sure we had a consensus from March to November of 1917. And why there was a solid half of the Spanish civil war we were in agreement

    • @[email protected]
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      553 days ago

      If you ask 10 Democrats what they want for lunch, they’ll give you 12 different answers

      • @[email protected]
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        3 days ago

        If you ask 10 Republicans what they want for lunch, they’ll give you 1 answer. And it’s racist.

        • @[email protected]
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          3 days ago

          As an undecided voter, the Democrats picked too expensive of a restaurant, so I’ll have what the Republicans are having, even though it’s moldy dog food.

          (Edit: This is meant to be sarcastic and insulting to those who voted for Trump “because of the economy” if it’s not obvious already, not to imply I was actually stupid enough to do that myself.)

          • @[email protected]
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            13 days ago

            The funny thing is that people vote for the GOP to save the economy but they are the ones who have ruined the economy on a regular basis/

        • @[email protected]
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          53 days ago

          Many are simply party loyalists. They’ve proven in this election that they’ll vote for anyone under their banner.

          Republicans divide and conquer. They’ll get the same support from those folks, even if their leaders pick a new “enemy.”

          • @[email protected]
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            53 days ago

            My understanding is there was more split ticket voting in this election than in years prior. Also have to consider that abortion received a huge amount of votes from many people who also voted for trump.

          • HobbitFoot
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            33 days ago

            Yeah. If you look at the overall votes between 2020 and 2024, Trump’s count barely moved. In contrast, Harris saw a collapse in votes compared to Biden.

        • @droporain
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          23 days ago

          Why did I think of the car scene from pulp fiction?

      • @[email protected]
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        223 days ago

        It’s not like the right is particularly unified on message, it just doesn’t bother them quite as much as long as their sports team is winning.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 days ago

      Well he is a social democrat and more centrist then left wing. However, a Bernie presidency would be absolutely incredible (even as a leftist).

        • @[email protected]
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          12 days ago

          Agreed lablels may be useful but when it comes to Bernie we should acknowledge that he’s just a good person who wants to do good

      • @[email protected]
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        33 days ago

        Ever seen ‘The Addams Family’ movie? Remember the scene where the villainess says she killed her parents because they got her the wrong Barbie doll for Christmas?

  • bacon_saber
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    483 days ago

    “The left has never fully grappled with the wreckage of fifty years of neoliberalism, which has left legions of Americans adrift as local places are hollowed out, rapacious profit seeking cannibalizes the common good, and unchecked new technology separates and isolates us,” wrote Murphy, who represents the northeastern blue bastion of Connecticut.

    The problems, he continued, were obvious: stagnant economic mobility for many Americans and an erosion of social life.

    But he went on to argue that the only way to shake up that dynamic was with real solutions that challenged the rich donors who support Democrats — wealthy interests who he said Democrats lacked the stomach to really challenge.

    “[W]hen progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists,” wrote Murphy. “We cannot be afraid of fights - especially with the economic elites who have profited off neoliberalism…Those are hard things for the left. A firm break with neoliberalism. Listen to poor and rural people, men in crisis. Don’t decide for them. Pick fights. Embrace populism. Build a big tent. Be less judgmental. But we are beyond small fixes.”

  • @[email protected]
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    3 days ago

    I hope Schumer steps back. He’s part of the old guard that got us here, and I don’t think he should be involved in party leadership anymore. Less sure about Jeffries - but frankly, despite his obvious skills, I’m deeply sketched by his refusal to play hardball with Johnson specifically, when he threw him a lifeline to get some stuff done instead of stepping back and letting his party and the situation they and Johnson created eat themselves alive. I think that alone indicates an excellent argument for Jeffries NOT being in leadership. This is not an era for compromise and half measures that perpetuate the status quo, which he inarguably has done.

    TL;DR: at this point, it’s my firm opinion that NOBODY who was involved in party leadership up to this point should be let within a country mile of leadership going forward - up to and including “fuck you, the DNC is dead, we’re making a new party”.

    • @[email protected]
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      143 days ago

      It’s rumored Jeffries was instrumental in the congestion pricing delay (that may now be a permanent delay).

    • @[email protected]
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      83 days ago

      Jefferies was one of the many democrats extremely unfavorable to using the 14th amendment. They all said they were going to beat Trump at the ballot box. They should be washed away from any relevant position in the party.

      • @[email protected]
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        53 days ago

        Well fuck me, I didn’t realize that. That changes my opinion to “keep him the fuck away from leadership”. Another one of those “let’s bring a deck of cards to a gunfight” imbeciles.

  • @[email protected]
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    313 days ago

    There’s a cognitive dissonance on Lemmy. I keep seeing people post the electorate is stupid for electing trump or staying home while also seeing posts like this acknowledging that the democratic party isn’t listening to the constituency. I realize it’s likely very different audiences but this is very much a bubble among liberals which unfortunately make up a large part of the party voting base. They were fine with everything continuing to suck a tiny bit more because the alternative was Trump. I think people are just squeezed and exhausted. They’re tired of being given the narrative that this is the election that will end all elections while things continue to get worse around the margins. And I think the people that would vote for systemic change don’t see Democrats capable of delivering on anything substantive.

    Note: This is not an endorsement of Trump or not voting at all as a result. But people really need to reckon with how broken shit is before blaming voters. Democrats have no incentives to fix anything.

    • @[email protected]
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      303 days ago

      Both can be true. A large swath of the electorate is stupid for electing Trump, but the Democratic party failed to reach them. This is a lesson that Republicans have known for decades but Democrats still don’t get. Voter’s are not rational; being better than your opponent does not win elections. People can be annoyed at the voters for making this reality, and at the Democrats for still not getting it.

      In fairness to the Dems though, the incumbent party lost ground in almost every Democracy, and Harris underperformed less in swing states where both parties campaigned.

      • @[email protected]
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        43 days ago

        I don’t know about “large” swath… it’s hard to tell since the media is going to focus on them and make them look larger than they are. It would be really interedting to see a poll of voters that also asked if the things trump did were fake news. Then compare how many trump voters answered yes. That might give us an approximation of the % that did so because they were just dumb enough to buy that hogwash.

        • @[email protected]
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          53 days ago

          Even if you wanted to make that argument, 70ish million people actively voted for Trump. He wants to remove fluoride from water. I don’t know what to tell you about those 70 million people lol.

            • @[email protected]
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              23 days ago

              Right?

              Like I’m not out here claiming Kamala was a particularly exciting candidate, but it’s not like this was remotely a difficult choice to make. This is absolutely reflective of a fundamentally incompetent electorate.

      • nifty
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        12 days ago

        I think the focus on “green” is distracting, and they should focus on working class woes first

    • @[email protected]
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      73 days ago

      “This is Socialism and Communism! These countries are dysfunctional hellholes…right…wait a minute…” - Republicans