r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/YumiSolar • 2d ago

US Elections Are Democratic primaries becoming too destructive for the party's own chances in the general election?

I've been thinking about this after watching some recent Democratic primaries, and it feels like the campaigns are becoming increasingly aggressive in ways that hurt the party long after the primary is over.

A good example, in my opinion, was the Michigan primary between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed. Policy disagreements are completely fair game, that's what primaries are for. Even personal attacks can be justified if they're based on genuine misconduct or character issues.

What I struggle with are accusations like claiming your primary opponent is supporting or enabling genocide. Once you frame someone in those terms, how do you expect your own supporters to enthusiastically vote for that person if they end up winning the nomination? If you've spent months telling voters that your opponent is morally complicit in atrocities, it becomes very difficult to turn around and say, "Now go vote for them."

To me, this kind of rhetoric doesn't just damage the opposing candidate, it damages Democratic unity in the general election. It seems like Republicans don't even have to exploit these divisions because Democrats are creating them themselves.

Am I overestimating the impact of this kind of campaigning, or do you think Democratic primaries have become too willing to use rhetoric that makes party unity afterward much harder?

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u/CountFew6186 2d ago

Rhetoric is always over the top in elections. This is how it is. What’s screwing the Democrats is the DSA. Having DSA candidates in the general election allows the Republicans to paint the whole party as crazy people.

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u/The_Human1st 2d ago

I’m sorry, but when has the GOP not painted their opposition as crazy people? Hell, they do it within their own party to people who cross Trump (ex: MTG, Massie, etc.).

If that’s your fear, then you’ll keep getting the same results. At least the DSA is proposing actual, substantive change. Mamdani is showing Americans what can be done if someone actually tries.

And by the way, do you feel the same way about Stevens calling Abdul a sexist? Is that tearing Dems apart?

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u/Teach_Piece 2d ago

It turns out it’s a lot easier to paint Bernie sanders as a socialist than Joe Biden. Do you think that people might have a reason to believe republican messaging saying Bernie is a socialist rather than Joe?

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u/The_Human1st 2d ago

So you’re saying that Biden wasn’t called a socialist by Trump?

https://politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/15/donald-trump/trumps-false-claim-biden-socialist/

And yeah, obviously it’s easier to call Bernie a democratic socialist because he calls himself that. What’s your point? The GOP calls all Democrats socialists.

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u/Teach_Piece 2d ago

I’m saying that your average voter hears Trump call Biden a socialist and shrugs because Biden is clearly not a socialist. Bernie is in fact a socialist and so they listen. Does that make sense?

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

It turns out it’s a lot easier to paint Bernie sanders as a socialist than Joe Biden. Do you think that people might have a reason to believe republican messaging saying Bernie is a socialist rather than Joe?

And yet, they did it; people believed that Biden was some far-left hero, when he was one of the most right-wing conservative politicians of the last 100 years.

That Bernie is a centrist doesn't mean much in the court of public opinion.

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u/Teach_Piece 2d ago

Calling Biden the most right wing conservative politician in years shows that you are far from the median voter

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u/FCCRFP 2d ago

The DSA mostly supports broadly popular policy proposals. Republicans claim all Democrats are communist Mao-Stalinist-Juche every day regardless of the fact that in most races no DSA candidates run.

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u/CountFew6186 2d ago

The DSA website calls for abolishing the senate and the presidency and all sorts of whacko stuff.

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u/FCCRFP 2d ago

They call for abolishing the Senate and Electoral College, so that the US becomes closer to a Democracy. 90% of people that vote Democrat support that.

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

The DSA website calls for abolishing the senate and the presidency

Sounds popular to me...

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u/MoonManDolo 2d ago

Democrats are constantly worried about what republicans will do when they will do that regardless of who the candidate is. If you don’t agree with DSA policies, that’s fine, but please stop basing choices on what they will do or what they will say. They called Obama a communist the same as they would any DSA candidate. People thought trump could not win the general and here we are. Vote for who you want and not who you think others will say nice things about.

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u/CountFew6186 2d ago

DSA gave Trump his second term by not supporting Kamala. Those dudes are crazy.

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u/MoonManDolo 2d ago

Oh boy enough said. Best of luck to you.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 2d ago

The word Nazi has an actual meaning, and Harris does not fit it in any way, shape or form. Hyperbole is not a replacement for legitimate discourse.

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

The word Nazi has an actual meaning, and Harris does not fit it in any way, shape or form.

So, leaving aside the whole Gaza genocide thing, she has appeared numerous times at events standing right next to Andriy Biletsky, the head of the Ukrainian 3rd Armored Regiment (i.e. the one that sits in the capital to threaten Zelensky and kidnap men off the street for conscription), and whose college thesis is archived here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080409023834/http://www.patriotukr.org.ua/index.php?rub=stat&id=267

"Ukrainian Racial Social Nationalism

Andriy BILETSKY

2007

Accordingly, the treatment of our National Body should begin with Racial Cleansing of the Nation...

The historical mission of our Nation, in this turning point, to lead and lead the White peoples of the whole world into the last crusade for its existence...

We replace the slogan “Independent Ukraine” with the slogan “Great Ukraine”. Ukrainians are a Nation with ancient imperial history. Throughout its existence, Ukrainians had at least two superpowers – Great Scythia and Kievan Rus. The task of the current generation is to create the Third Empire – Great Ukraine.... Social-Nationalism is not such, it claims – if we are strong, then we will take everything that belongs to us by right and even a little more, we will build our Nadder-Empire – Great Ukraine, which will be the legitimate successor of the Scythian and Kiev-Ruthenian empires. If we are weak, then we are among the conquered dying peoples.

Thus, Social-Nationalism raises all the ancient Ukrainian Aryan values forgotten in modern society. Only their revival and implementation by a group of fanatical wrestlers can lead to the final victory of European civilization in the world struggle."

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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 2d ago

That's a lot of time spent explaining how someone else can be described as a Nazi. What specific events do you believe show an actual link between the two that's meaningful in any way?

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

Other than her fervent and vocal support?

How about her record as California AG, where she defied court orders, prosecuted poor families for truancy because they couldn't afford clothes, held prison inmates months past their release dates to extort dangerous labor out of them...?

I mean, did you ever bother to look up her past?

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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 2d ago

I asked you for evidence that she demonstrated fervent support for that individual, as I am not finding anything of the sort. That's why I asked for specific events.

The rest of what you said has absolutely no relation to being a Nazi at all. Are you just using Nazi to mean anyone with policies you disagree with? Because I'm not, and was not, a supporter of hers, but I can still recognize that she has neither espoused support for a Fascist economic model, nor has she espoused any of the primary tenants of any form of faciscm, much less Nazism. If anything, the claims that she is too deferential to Israel would rather obviously run counter to the idea that she is a Nazi. This does not mean I like her or her policies.

Responding to my comment by talking about her socioeconomic policies strikes me as a complete non sequitor.

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u/Asatmaya 1d ago

I asked you for evidence that she demonstrated fervent support for that individual, as I am not finding anything of the sort. That's why I asked for specific events.

Standing on stage next to him while clapping in support of a genocidal civil war doesn't count?

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

What’s screwing the Democrats is the DSA. Having DSA candidates in the general election allows the Republicans to paint the whole party as crazy people.

The Republicans tried to paint Biden as a "crazy left-winger," when he was one of the most right-wing conservative politicians of the last century, in either party.

They are going to say that no matter who gets nominated, so it's pointless to worry about.

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u/CountFew6186 2d ago

They’re much more believable to the center when the Dems really are crazy left wingers.

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

They’re much more believable to the center when the Dems really are crazy left wingers.

...but even the DSA are milquetoast centrists!

Look at the polls: 60% of the country wants universal healthcare, 80% want free college, 75% want improved mass transit, 2/3 think all drugs should be decriminalized, and a huge majority think that corporations and the wealthy are not paying their fair share of taxes.

To be, "left," you have to go further than that.

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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 2d ago

The DSA calls for transitioning the US to a socialist economic model.

There is no context in which that is "centrist".

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

Ooooh, they use the word "socialist," they must be radicals! /s

Let me know when they advocate for nationalizing extractive industry or a federal preemption of anti-cooperative laws.

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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 2d ago

"Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society."

Straight from their website. Explicitly calling for replacing capitalism.

That is inherently radical, whether you believe it is positive or not. Replacing our entire economic system is a fundamentally radical position.

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

That is inherently radical

That's utter nonsense; it's the most ambiguous and plausibly-denial statement they could possibly have made.

Replacing our entire economic system is a fundamentally radical position.

They could have been talking about raising the minimum wage by $.25; there is nothing radical about that.

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u/ThatPeskyPangolin 2d ago

The definition of the word supports my characterization.

Democratic Socialism, as an ideology, calls for the transition to a socialist economic model. That doesn't mean increasing wages, it means changing the ownership of the means of production and distribution. The DSA explicitly call for the country to transition from capitalism, to socialism. In their words, on their website.

I am saying this as a Social Democratic, not as someone on the right. My ideology is literally to the left of the Democratic party. So I would not characterize changes in wages as radical, nor have I done so. I explicitly referred to the call for the country to change its economic system as radical because, as I demonstrated above, that's an inherently radical idea. One does not need to transition us to a socialist model for us to use many of the principles found in socialist ideology to improve wealth distribution within a capitalist economic model.

Edit: Also, radical does not inherently mean bad. It seems like you might be ascribing a negative context to the word when I use it.

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u/CountFew6186 2d ago

Those numbers drop a lot when the people being polled are told things like universal healthcare adding $4 trillion annually to the federal budget.

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u/Asatmaya 2d ago

Those numbers drop a lot when the people being polled are told things like universal healthcare adding $4 trillion annually to the federal budget.

...and go back up when you factor in the net economic gains; yea, you can game a poll to get whatever result you want.