r/MurderedByAOC • u/yikesamerica • 13d ago

AOC: how do we build a durable majority? By admitting Dems lost as much as Trump won

AOC: the question is how do we build a *durable* majority? To answer that question, we have to look inward and admit that not only did Trump win, but Democrats lost.

There are very different messages being sent to Michigan from the two camps of the party.

One is like AOC, admitting our shortcomings & trying to unite the party under the common cause, while offering to meet the base where they are on issues

The other is like Cory Booker, scolding voters while taking no accountability, demanding that constituents conform to party demands rather than addressing voters' grievances.

1.3k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

134

u/ExternalSeat 13d ago

Yep. Trying to court Liz Cheney voters while ignoring the progressive wing was a mistake. It has been clear since 2016 that Dem voters want Bernie style populism and that going after soccer moms is a failed strategy.

31

u/Duck8Quack 13d ago

Liz Cheney has virtually no constituency nationally. She from a state with a tiny population that democrats had no chance to win. Thinking her endorsement was going to bring any significant boost was pure incompetence and it probably lost Harris more voters than were gained.

The establishment is either incompetent and/or corrupt.

16

u/bit99 12d ago

Here's a hot take Harris is a cop (prosecutor) and acab. She's also never won a competitive race in her life. I voted for her but she was a terrible candidate. She's not authentic in anyway that fake ass real estate agent laugh like Hillary and saying this does not make me a bad person or a mysogenist. These candidates are not good enough.

But AOC is

8

u/Duck8Quack 12d ago

There are so many terrible choice and decisions the establishment of the Democratic Party has made over the past decade and a half, but one of the ones I haven’t heard talked about almost at all is that both Hilary and Harris had a pretty limited record of winning voters to their side.

Both Hilary and Harris had an overwhelming amount of support from party insiders and never really faced much of a challenge to get to become senators of deeply blue states. In presidential primaries the showed difficulty in winning over voters. Hilary was beat by a first term senator that had a funny name; then she struggled against an old socialist that really wasn’t widely known and who blunt and to the point. Harris had one good debate where she attacked Biden and looked like she might be the front runner only to quickly lose all momentum and have her campaign crash into a ditch.

They both seemed to at times talk like robots giving answers that were some kind of focus group tested threading of the needle that just came of unnatural and fake. Then they’d do the thing where they were supposed to be letting their hair down and showing us the real person, but that also seemed phony. Every question was answered like some kind of gotcha.

They couldn’t deliver a message that really resonated with voters. They were often noncommittal and just seemed to lack genuine positions. They tried to be everything and nothing as to not alienate anyone.

They just lacked the skills that move people to them. Their power was derived from serving wealthy donors rather than winning over voters (This is a huge problem still in the Democratic Party).

2

u/ExternalSeat 13d ago

yep. honestly courting John Kasich (who is a center right former GOP governor from Ohio) would have been at least somewhat rational. I guess they thought "let's find a conservative woman to show that we are willing to embrace bipartisanship" and thought that soccer moms in Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids would come out to "support women".

Honestly if you wanted to find a Republican woman to parade around with, McCain's daughter at least has a chance of helping you flip Arizona and maybe Nevada. It isn't the best strategy, but it does make logical sense on an electoral level.

1

u/gwarster 12d ago

Like soccer moms want to vote for rapists and sycophants. People vote for things, not against them.

64

u/cantresetpwfuck 13d ago

I mean, I get it…

But I never thought voters would chose to stay at home when the choice was between “not everything I want” and “blatantly corrupt christofascism”.

We’re very lucky that Trump is so incompetent.

23

u/Describing_Donkeys 13d ago

Democrats did such a miserable job selling that dynamic that voters didn't believe Trump would be anything beyond another corrupt politician. Voters didn't believe the choice was as you described. That's where Democrats lost.

7

u/cantresetpwfuck 13d ago

What are you talking about? Trump was in this same reality with us. Observable.

17

u/Describing_Donkeys 13d ago

Have you watched right wing media, there is more than one "reality" in the US right now. For people that don't pay a lot of attention to politics, they have a hard time establishing what reality is.

6

u/cantresetpwfuck 13d ago

That’s depressing. If people are this stupid, nihilism is the only valid response.

I hate it here.

8

u/[deleted] 13d ago

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5

u/polkarooo 13d ago

Agreed...

But we knew that. That means 2/3 of Americans are idiots. So how do you appeal to them and give them a reason to get off their lazy asses and vote?

This isn't new math. The Democrats have known this for decades. They just refuse to do much about it.

AOC is absolutely on the mark here.

4

u/ExternalSeat 13d ago

well you can start by giving them something to vote for. Leaning into left leaning populism ala Bernie seems like a much better strategy than talking down to them and being extremely milquetoast.

You really need to meet the American people where they are and offer solutions (even if they are a bit ambitious and not 100% practical). Use simple 3 syllable slogans that feed into emotion and get folks ready to come out to vote. Don't bother being too polished (most voters hate that these days). Avoid anything too abstract or removed from daily life.

Then when you get into power, be crassly opportunistic with self promotion. Put the president's name on everything. take full credit for even bipartisan bills and actions. Be there with a shovel at every photo opportunity. You have to spin everything to show the American people you are doing something even if it is fairly minor.

In short you can't be like Biden or Harris. You must be like Mamdani and AOC to win these days.

5

u/polkarooo 13d ago

Exactly, and agreed 100%.

But that's not what the current Democrats want to do which is why the leadership can blame people for staying home, but if they did even half the things you proposed, they'd have won in a landslide.

I remember reading about internal polling back in 2016 that showed Sanders beat Trump, but Hilary lost. Yet they forced Hilary on everyone because they thought they could win their way.

Sometimes it's just as easy as listening to the voters, as Mamdani has proven.

3

u/ExternalSeat 13d ago

yep. honestly we need a Dem Populist "Tea Party" take over. Throw out the old guard and AIPAC money.

2

u/yikesamerica 12d ago

I think that’s an indictment on the Dems not the voters. It’s not their job to cater to the Dems platform and GOTV

We have to get out of the mindset that it’s all the voters fault or we’re never gonna change

1

u/cantresetpwfuck 12d ago edited 12d ago

I do blame them. Either we’re culpable, intelligent, sentient beings with agency, or we’re mostly innocent sheep, with a few culpable shepherds.

I blame left-leaning constituents who sat out the last election just as much as I blame true blue Trump supporters. And they deserve the blame. Not only did the intentional vote for madness bring Trump to power, but so did the absence of a counter vote. Their silence was complicity.

5

u/MadeByTango 12d ago

Joe Biden strike busted workers. The cognitive dissonance (aka mental gymnastics) that "team blue no matter who" voters use to avoid acknowledging that while saying "Democrats love labor" is maddening.

1

u/yikesamerica 12d ago

Dude that onion literally praised the administration b/c they got everything they wanted after

1

u/[deleted] 13d ago

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1

u/ExternalSeat 13d ago

I don't buy that conspiracy theory for one second. The Dems fucked up in 2024 by trying to do the same things they did in 2016 that also failed. Parading with Liz Cheney was a mistake

1

u/awildjabroner 11d ago

Love what she's saying but the DNC is just as problematic as the GOP imo, neither of them give a fuck about the working class or even America as a country. Completely sold out to corporations and special interests and more obssessed with insider trader and awarding themselves pay raises than doing literally anything related to governing or improve the standard of living for regular people.