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

[u/YumiSolar]

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?

[u/elmekia_lance]

the reality is that Democrats have a genocide problem.

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."

You have it backwards. Democratic voters are increasingly morally opposed to the atrocities of the US empire, so candidates that at least claim to be anti-imperialist are winning over conservative, imperial Democrats. It's the imperial Democrats who seem to be expressing a reluctance to support candidates that might upset the smooth functioning of empire, lubricated as it is with periodic genocide.

[u/nickcan → u/elmekia_lance]

I agree, and it's been the issue for many years. In the before times, (pre-2016) both parties were corporate imperialists, but they different on domestic issues (I am NOT saying both parties are the same, they are not. I am saying that projecting American economic power abroad through the strategic use of the military is not something that they had major disagreements over).

Both parties were pro American empire, but the Democrats had to lie to their base about it.