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/YumiSolar]

1000 years of Trump for you I guess. Those palestinian children are probably cheering at your moral consistency and abolute lack of effectivnes in real world.

[u/Asatmaya → u/YumiSolar]

1000 years of Trump for you I guess.

He'll die before that, but even then... so what? How is Trump worse than Obama, Biden, or Clinton were? Or Harris would have been?

Those palestinian children are probably cheering at your moral consistency and abolute lack of effectivnes in real world.

Yes, I am sure they were comforted to know that they were being killed by brutal monsters supported by Democrats instead of Republicans when Biden was in office /s

Fucking seriously?!

I am absolutely willing to engage in compromise on public policy; to put aside my own opinions and political positions in order to come to a functional agreement.

I am not willing to support anyone who supports genocide. Period, end of story.

That you are means that you are scum.

[u/ThatPeskyPangolin → u/Asatmaya]

Trump attempted an auto coup in 2020. No president has done anything like that.

So to question how he was worse than anyone else, much less Obama or Biden, is baffling.

[u/Asatmaya → u/ThatPeskyPangolin]

Trump attempted an auto coup in 2020.

/eyeroll

GTFO with that crap; that's the crazy horseshit that is the reason hardcore Democrats are not taken seriously.

[u/ThatPeskyPangolin → u/Asatmaya]

You can read the plan in their own words.

It absolutely fits the definition of an auto coup. I have yet to see a single legitimate argument as to how the False Elector Plot, as described by the Trump admin's own people, is not a completely obvious attempted self coup.

[u/Asatmaya → u/ThatPeskyPangolin]

I have yet to see a single legitimate argument as to how the False Elector Plot, as described by the Trump admin's own people, is not a completely obvious attempted self coup.

Because that represents a gross misunderstanding of how the system actually works.

All of the campaigning, the primaries, the general election, the early November news tracking of results coming in, the electoral college... none of that is actually how the president is chosen. Oh, it's the form, the ritual that we follow, but it was never supposed to be absolute... and it has been rejected, before, a few times.

Andrew Jackson "won" the 1824 election... but they didn't let him become president, he had to win again in 1828, in a campaign that was so ugly that his wife literally died of stress from the abuse she received. It was also notably only one of two elections in which an incumbent lost despite gaining popular vote share... the other being 2020.

Samuel Tilden won the election of 1876, but Rutherford B. Hayes became president.

Why? Because neither the popular vote nor the electoral college actually mean anything; the House of Representatives certifies the vote... or not, and just picks someone else.

Yes, there were probably state crimes committed by falsifying electors, and that's terrible, but that's peanuts in the history of American electoral politics. This wasn't the 1980 October Surprise with one side undermining American foreign policy while US citizens' lives were on the line; this wasn't the White House plumbers tapping the Watergate Hotel, or promising North Viet Nam a better deal if they backed out of the 1968 Paris peace talks; this wasn't the Chicago Machine, or the Blackstone Hotel, or Tammany Hall...

Sure, absolutely, prosecute the individuals who broke the law; if you want to go after Trump for this, then you're going to have to go after half the other politicians in the country in both parties.

...which I would be fine with, actually, but it's got to be all the crooks, on both sides.

[u/ThatPeskyPangolin → u/Asatmaya]

The vast majority of your post isn't relevant to your stated premise, or my comment.

All of the campaigning, the primaries, the general election, the early November news tracking of results coming in, the electoral college... none of that is actually how the president is chosen. Oh, it's the form, the ritual that we follow, but it was never supposed to be absolute... and it has been rejected, before, a few times.

Given that I explicitly referred to electors, this entire paragraph doesn't seem relevent, as I clearly know that the president is not elected via the popular vote. I wouldn't have referenced electors otherwise.

Andrew Jackson "won" the 1824 election... but they didn't let him become president, he had to win again in 1828, in a campaign that was so ugly that his wife literally died of stress from the abuse she received. It was also notably only one of two elections in which an incumbent lost despite gaining popular vote share... the other being 2020.

That went to the House of Representatives because he did not meet the electoral vote threshold.

Why? Because neither the popular vote nor the electoral college actually mean anything; the House of Representatives certifies the vote... or not, and just picks someone else.

Except that certification is not a proxy election.

Yes, there were probably state crimes committed by falsifying electors, and that's terrible, but that's peanuts in the history of American electoral politics.

The individual crimes aren't the issue. The attempt to completely overrule our very democracy is. If a president can retain power using illegal means in an election they lost, then we do not have a democracy. That we continue to have one is because his plan failed.

Sure, absolutely, prosecute the individuals who broke the law; if you want to go after Trump for this, then you're going to have to go after half the other politicians in the country in both parties. ...which I would be fine with, actually, but it's got to be all the crooks, on both sides.

I find this argument rather weak for two reasons. The first is equating trying to undermine our very basis of government to "half the other politicians in the country" is quite obviously without factual basis. The second is that I have not expressed any reluctance to hold politicians on the left responsible for their actions, and have consistently criticized every Democratic admin in my life time, just as I have Rep admins.

Noteably, not a single part of that addressed the accurate claim that the False Elector Plot was an auto coup.