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.
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.
As a Swede, calling the Democrats a party on the left is insane, it is center/right and the Republicans are far right.
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.
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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%.
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.
I think they’re saying that some nations’ options are subjectively dubbed “left and right” based on relative comparison, not the ideologies themselves.
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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.
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LOL, SD and AFS being center!
AOC doesn’t need to be under anybody’s wing.
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.
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”.
TIL speaking plain English is word salad.
If you’re uneducated and someone is speaking more formally it can be, depending on the topic and the word choice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics)#Register_as_formality_scale
I’m not sure about the specifics, but the core I can agree with, that is: ‘people speaking the same language, but with vastly different backgrounds, will have difficulty communicating effectively.’
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.
Nice, glad to help! And cool that you did Linguistics in school!
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.
She stoped supporting single payer, she backed off worker rights, she backed off on taxing corporations, and a huge part of the platform was against Trump’s abortion ban and against Trump’s authoritarism.
Show us where she did this. Come on.
He tax an was tweaked with a more pro corporation lean on the advice of her brother I law Tony West and probably others but all the articles on that are behind paywalls and I don’t really care enough about convincing you to look for a way to bypass them.
As for Trump’s abortion ban and things like that, I remember her saying it because she said it. https://www.instagram.com/kamalaharris/reel/DBz9j1zquQx/
I genuinely feel that most people don’t vote for a policy they vote for a feeling.
I also think that either the DNC doesn’t understand the anger that many have about the wealth inequality or they just ignore it due to the donors they were courting. If they did understand this and understand that people vote with their feelings, I believe it would have been a closer race.
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.
Mmmmmmmmhmmmmmm. I know that’s right. Preach on!!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nor does it justify not voting. However, we are not dealing with rational people because they are people and not rational.
People don’t see, we imagine. Mommy Fortuna’s gotta put a fake horn on a real unicorn.
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.
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.
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
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.
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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.
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”.
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.
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.
If you say so. I went shopping this weekend and every store was crowded with people. Seems like the economy rebounded to me.
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.
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.
You mean this?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1855616243039916152.html
That doesn’t fit your description.
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.
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
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.
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.
The people who don’t agree with climate change don’t believe it exists.
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/06/trump-victory-sweeping-climate-consequences
This is not “uncritically supporting men’s rights.”
Your argument is focusing on the bait and ignoring the switch.
Listen to poor and rural people, men in crisis. Don’t decide for them.
We are listening to them. This is what they are saying.
This time around, one of the attack lines is “your body, my choice.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/384792/your-body-my-choice-maga-gender-election
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.
That’s how we’re framing it. If that’s not appealing to some people, there’s a mainstream fascist political party they can join. We don’t need two mainstream fascist parties.
By the way, the worldview is that all people are equal. And that inequality harms us all, but some people are harmed more than others. People on the left have no interest in a worldview where women are second class citizens.
The people who don’t agree with climate change don’t believe it exists.
Uh huh. Are you only able to cooperate with people who agree with you in every way?
Your argument is focusing on the bait and ignoring the switch.
And yours is going out of its way to manufacture enemies.
That’s how we’re framing it.
Again, sure. Not worth fighting over the phrasing.
Uh huh. Are you only able to cooperate with people who agree with you in every way?
We should not cooperate with fascists especially when they don’t believe in climate change. It would be a waste of time since they want to kill us and want to pollute as much as possible.
And yours is going out of its way to manufacture enemies.
My argument didn’t tell the MAGA movement to be fascists. A progressive and socialist populist movement could rally most people without needing for anyone to hate minority groups or disregard scientific consensus.
Again, sure. Not worth fighting over the phrasing.
Good, so you agree then? We should move the Democratic Party to the left. Democrats should champion systemic change and wealth redistribution. edit: typo
We should not cooperate with fascists especially when they don’t believe in climate change.
Not believing in climate change does not make someone a fascist. Murphy was talking about accepting people who don’t want to be aligned with MAGA. That is plainly a strategic imperative.
I agree that we need to watch out for cryptofascists, but your meter is too sensitive.
Similarly, men’s concerns about loneliness etc. are worth hearing out. I wouldn’t say that has much at all to do with “rights,” though.
Good, so you agree then?
As far as I can tell, yes. I suspect I would be more hands-off about correcting some harms, but I strongly agree with no second class of citizens.
We should move the Democratic Party to the left. Democrats should champion systemic change and wealth redistribution.
I don’t object. I’m an ex-Republican long since committed to riding the Democratic wagon wherever it goes. I would take FDR 2.0 if that’s what can defeat MAGA, but I don’t have confidence that it’s a good approach. I do think the wealth/income gap is a threat to liberty and stability.
Do you think men shouldn’t have rights?
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!!”
If you ask 10 Democrats what they want for lunch, they’ll give you 12 different answers
If you ask 10 Republicans what they want for lunch, they’ll give you 1 answer. And it’s racist.
I wish 10 Republicans would eat racist for lunch, because then we’d be down to 9 Republicans!
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.)
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/
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.”
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.
Yup. Abortion is just another divisive topic. Any way to pit one group against another…
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.
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.
Marx never wrote about lunch, so we shouldn’t eat anything!
Well he is a social democrat and more centrist then left wing. However, a Bernie presidency would be absolutely incredible (even as a leftist).
How about we drop all the distinctions and just say “good for regular people”?
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
Bernie is a democratic socialist
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?
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
The good old days, right?
“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.”
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”.
It’s rumored Jeffries was instrumental in the congestion pricing delay (that may now be a permanent delay).
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.
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.
“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.”
"Meanwhile the
Corpo shillsremainder of the Democratic party insist they didn’t go conservative enough. “We had Dick Cheney on our side! We shouted at them that their lives are better now! They no longer can afford homes and found everything to be more expensive, but the stock market! The people just don’t understand how when my investments go up that means everything is working as intended.” Audible groans were heard from within the room and within seconds security was escorting people away from reporters. “We will definitely win next time, we just need to lie harder about their lives being better. I hear workers hate unions so we’ll work on killing those too.”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.
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.
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.
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.
With RFK in charge of healthcare we’ll be lucky if vaccines are legal in four years.
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.
The Dems need to implement the Nordic Model of economic and social policies in the U.S., it’s not that hard outside of removing oversized lobbying influence on U.S. politics
“This is Socialism and Communism! These countries are dysfunctional hellholes…right…wait a minute…” - Republicans
They tried with the green new deal
I think the focus on “green” is distracting, and they should focus on working class woes first
Liz
Cheney
Maybe they shouldnt have couped bernie then run a candidate that has never won a primary. Maybe they should try running on policy for the working class people instead of identity politics. But what do i know im just some aussie cunt on lemmy.
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.
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.
They weren’t funny, or socialist enough.
Resulting in them coming off as:
Serious, and Corporatist…
…which is what they are (although the Trumps are obviously way more Corporatist).
It’s the working class economy, stupid
If that was the case then the dems would have won. Biden ramped down inflation brought wages up and supported unions.
The dems lost because people love to cut their nose off to spite their face.
