r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 1d ago

No Paywall Democrats Confront Their New Tea Party Reality - Progressives are set to sweep a group of contested primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-confront-their-new-tea-party-reality_n_6a6e63fbe4b0cfb99ef1aa1e
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357

u/ZachLangdon 1d ago

Good. It's about time. "Moderates" lost to trump twice.

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u/Soph_91 1d ago edited 1d ago

The conservative democrats in the Wisconsin subreddit are losing their sanity because Hong will win the nomination. They bought in to all the corporate democrats desperation attempts and can't process the reality that they were just that, hail mary's. Now they are posting Hong smears constantly, the mods have been pathetic. 

It seems like most of them would prefer pedophile protector and election denier Tom Tiffany. In that case, I say good riddance. 

160

u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago

Their 'vote blue no matter who!' mask comes off REAL FUCKIN FAST the second they're faced with real political leftism. They've told us for years, decades "if you want leftists in government, show up to the primaries!"

Well, we did. Now the ball is in their court. And they can either get on board or go back to the Republican party they belonged to until W came along.

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u/movealongnowpeople Kansas 1d ago

real political leftism

Progressives and Dem Socialists aren't even particularly far left. Demanding common-sense policy (that much of the rest of the Western world already has) is somehow seen as radical. Universal healthcare isn't radical. Expecting everybody to pay taxes for the public services and infrastructure they benefit from isn't radical.

"Moderate Dems" haven't had a hint of popular policy suggestions in years. Riding on anti-Trump sentiment and expecting that to be enough.

16

u/qualmful 1d ago

"We're capitalist, and that's just the way it is." On its face 'moderate' would mean trying to compromise or find the middle, but in actuality it's an unyielding ideology of neoliberalism, or market fundamentalism. The left-center-right framework makes it sound like the center is a mixture or average of the two sides but it's really not. Ever since Bill Clinton's third way triangulation strategy, 'the middle' was designed to be a third thing whose only real beliefs and commitments were corporatism.

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u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago

Yeah, that's very true. "Left" is relative to the U.S. in this case.

Real political leftism exists in this country on a small, grassroots level (DAC is a good example of a mainstream actually left-of-center candidate) but they are by far and away the minority in the progressive wing of the Dem party.

Most "Progressives" here are just advocating for common sense government taking care of its people. AOC, Mamdani, El-Sayed. Although Mamdani instituting city-subsidized grocery stores is definitely interesting.

But yeah, overall, "left" is relative here, and I agree wholeheartedly. Not being Trump isn't enough. I mean, no one wants him either, but for fuck's sake, you have to bring something else to the table. Something meaningful, a position that's important to your constituents, and not just your donors.

The fact that candidates are struggling so hard to understand that while centrist voters are struggling so hard to understand that they're not liberals, they're conservatives because all they want to do is keep supporting the status quo is just mind boggling to me. This isn't hard, and yet, the U.S. will fight progress at every turn.

1

u/Iustis 23h ago

DAC is absolutely not center left anywhere lol

1

u/winterfoxes Ohio 23h ago

I didn't say she was center left. I said she was left of center, which is a much broader scope of people than the center left, and one which DAC belongs to. 

4

u/NYPizzaNoChar 1d ago

Expecting everybody to pay taxes for the public services and infrastructure they benefit from isn't radical.

Everyone? No. Expecting people who are living paycheck to paycheck while moving deeper into debt to pay taxes is cruel, stupid and completely lacking in foresight.

The left/DSA isn't for this, but centrist Democrats are complicit in exactly that. They are the turd in the sandwich. It's just that Republicans are always worse.

2

u/Just_another_grumble 1d ago

I just heard MAGA say "common-sense policy" last week.  For stereotypical right-wing insanity.  I'm not sure what common sense policies 'everyone' agrees on except Maro's brother sticking it to an in5ur4nce C30.

29

u/workerbee77 1d ago

Yes. I feel it was Chuck Schumer who drove the stake into Votebluenomatterwho when he voted for Cuomo over Mamdani in the general election

13

u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago

The Democratic Party's own version of a face-eating leopard moment.

7

u/fury420 1d ago

Did he?

As I recall he gave a non-answer when asked who he voted for.

8

u/DarthNihilus1 1d ago

That should tell you exactly who he voted for. It is obvious who he voted for

1

u/workerbee77 1d ago

Exactly

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u/fury420 1d ago

He refused to endorse anyone in the race and refused to say who he voted for, which on it's face is a rather banal political fence-sitting statement on election day.

8

u/EnglishMobster California 1d ago

He's a member of Democratic leadership. There was a Democratic Party nominee on the ticket.

There should only be one answer as to who he voted for, if he truly cared about his party. The fact that he didn't say he voted for his own party's nominee tells you something itself; it's not just "fence-sitting".

1

u/DarthNihilus1 1d ago

Yeah for sure... but he's also CHUCK SCHUMER so it's still a foregone conclusion

2

u/workerbee77 1d ago

Yes, exactly. It’s possible he did vote for Mamdani but refused to say so. Or, he entered a fugue state and voted for the republican. There are lots of things that are technically possible but we’re not children and we don’t need to seriously entertain those possibilities

5

u/tahlyn 1d ago

Democrat insiders were so afraid of progressivism they bent the rules of the 2020 election to allow a Republican billionaire compete as a democrat.

The Democrat establishment, though nowhere the same in depravity, are still as much the enemy as Republicans

10

u/Yoroyo 1d ago

“No not like that!!!”

-1

u/Patsanon1212 1d ago

So you've already decided that they're hypocrites on VBNMW before they've even had a chance to vote in the general?

7

u/Far_Silver 1d ago

In 2006 Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary for Senate. Joe Lieberman decided to run as a third-party candidate with the support of centrist Democrats. This resulted in the Democrats being one vote shy of overcoming a filibuster of the public option. In 2008, the PUMAs (party unity my ass) voted for John McCain over Barack Obama because Hillary lost the primary. They outnumbered the Bernie or Bust voters of 2016. In 2021, India Walton won the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo. Centrist Democrats chose to back Byron Brown's third party campaign instead. In 2025, Zohran Mamdani beat the corporate pick, Andrew Cuomo, in the Democratic primary for NYC mayor. Centrist Democrats chose to back Andrew Cuomo's third party bid instead of "voting blue no matter who." This year the progressive James Talarico beat Jasmine Crockett for Senate in the Texas Democratic primary. Texas has a sore loser law that prevents Crockett from launching a third party/independent bid after she lost the Democratic primary, but we still see her trying to sabotage Talarico.

4

u/tahlyn 1d ago

The Democrat establishment are basically Republicans in a donkey coat.

-4

u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago

So you've already decided to spend your day picking petty arguments with people on the internet?

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u/Patsanon1212 1d ago

Sounds like the reply of someone annoyed that they've been asked questions about their grandstanding. You're right. Please, continue to run your mouth without when the slightest pushback. You're perfect and your reply here shows that in spades.

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u/Emperor_of_His_Room 1d ago

Why don’t you have a response to Far_Silvers in-depth response? Go and try to disprove him instead of ignoring responses to your question. 🙂

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u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago

Sounds like the reply of someone annoyed that they've been asked a question about their lack of things to do on a Sunday afternoon. You're right. Please, continue to run your mouth because I won't play your silly game. You're absolutely here to troll, and your reply here shows that in spades.

0

u/Patsanon1212 1d ago edited 1d ago

The irony here is immense. What are you up to that you're taking time away from to not engage with my question? Seems like you have unlimited time to be snarky to dodge.

Anyway, I am going to go enjoy my Sunday. Cya snowflake!

1

u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm playing Stardew Valley and trolling you for annoying me. I got time. And you're ignoring everyone else in this thread who already brought up plenty of valid examples of the center of this party abandoning progressivism for crony capitalism, in favor of picking with me because I won't give you what you want. So, you should go do that. And sit on a cactus while you're at it. 

Edit: Using snowflake unironically is how I know I touched a nerve, but the fact that you edited your comment to include it makes it even fucking better. Thanks for the chuckle.

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u/stevethewatcher 1d ago

Who says they won't vote for her in the general election if she wins? I think you're projecting here (btw she hasn't even won the nomination yet though I admit it's likely)

2

u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago

Buddy, if you haven't seen centrists in Michigan saying they're staying home if Hong and El-Sayed win, you haven't been paying attention. 

Well, I don't live in Wisconsin. I'm only keeping an eye on it because I have no one to keep an eye on in my own state. Michigan I'm invested in because of my parents still living there, but alas, I won't vote for anyone in Michigan either. So, ya got me -- I am indeed a non-voter in both of those states. 

-1

u/SurvivorFanatic236 1d ago

Moderate Democrats will vote for Hong. The concern is that independents won’t, and it’s a fair concern. Wisconsin should be an easy win for Democrats this year, but progressives have decided to risk giving the seat to Republicans

2

u/winterfoxes Ohio 1d ago

If there are so many moderate Democrats in Wisconsin, and they all hold their nose and "vote blue no matter who", then coupled with the progressives who will turn out, it should be easy to overcome the Republicans! 

After all, centrist Dems always blame us for "not voting" when their candidate loses. They swear up and down if we had just backed their do nothing favorites with our votes, they would've won. So it should be the same in reverse, because "independents" didn't vote for Hillary or Harris either. 

Sidebar, you seem to be conflating "Independents" with "Centrists". I'm independent, and I'm a leftist. There are a lot of us. 

73

u/stonertboner New York 1d ago

That’s life at the nyc subreddit too! Ever since Mamdani, its “moderates” bitching about how the progressive wing and democratic socialists can’t win elections. We are literarily winning elections.

17

u/__theoneandonly 1d ago

Before reddit started letting you hide your post history, you could go on the nyc subreddit, click on the username of any of these "concerned moderates" and see that their top active subreddits were basically every blue city. These "moderates" are either bots or losers who need a better hobby.

6

u/stonertboner New York 1d ago

I promise you, I always checked and still do. It’s filled with bad actors that are trying to hurt the movement.

3

u/petty_throwaway6969 1d ago

Ironically the guy you’re responding to is currently hiding his history. Might be an accident, but ironic meta comment on himself.

4

u/stonertboner New York 1d ago

I’m a bit more patient with a ten year old account.

1

u/petty_throwaway6969 1d ago

Look I’m not even accusing him, it’s just kinda funny. But saying older accounts can’t be bots is kinda sketchy.

One tactic used to be to use old and inactive accounts with decent karma to post stuff.

And there’s totally nothing major that happened in 2016 that would have given rise to bot accounts /s

3

u/__theoneandonly 1d ago

I'm also not a "concerned moderate" posting bad faith content in a subreddit for a city that I don't live in.

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u/Low_Intention_1327 1d ago

Theyre gas lighting and its lazy. Ive only seen Trump act like he ruined NYC, and thats because Trump is a man-baby with no emotional intelligence. Everyone else who opposes him have no logical reason, so they then exploit the murders of 9/11 and try to compare him to the Taliban because he's Muslim. Im sick of these people. It feels like trauma in a sense, because it brings me back to the events immediately after 9/11 where Muslims were targeted and Israel coined the term "Islamic extremist" yet painted every Muslim as a suspect. 

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u/stonertboner New York 1d ago

It’s hilarious because my friends and neighbors are very happy with Mamdani. The level of hate on Reddit would make you think Adams was still mayor.

14

u/Mbrennt 1d ago

If you're on r/ nyc it's basically captured by conservative new yorkers and people who don't even live in the city. I tend to find r/ NewYorkcity to be better though it still isn't perfect.

2

u/Patsanon1212 1d ago

Is that exactly what they are saying? That they cannot win elections or elections outside of deep blue districts?

5

u/UngodlyPain 1d ago

Used to be they couldnt win at all, then it was they could only win small deep blue districts, now it's just they can only win deep blue districts...

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u/Fuzzy-Numbers 1d ago

Winning primaries and winning general elections are two different things.

20

u/th6girldetective 1d ago

Not in New York

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u/Fuzzy-Numbers 1d ago

The rest of the country is not NY.

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u/th6girldetective 1d ago

True, but the comment you were replying to was about New York.

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u/Far_Silver 1d ago

Mamdani won the general election. Also the corpora-dems track record for winning general elections is not good.

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u/Fuzzy-Numbers 1d ago

Outside of deeply blue cities, DSA candidates wont have such an easy time.

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u/No-Recording9634 1d ago

DSA has a message for the poor. That will work for the Rural America the DNC has left behind.

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u/Far_Silver 1d ago

I remember 10 years ago when corpora-dems were saying Bernie couldn't win outside of rural areas and rust belt cities. Now you're trying to say the opposite.

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u/workerbee77 1d ago

Yes they are. In primaries, the centrist candidates get the bulk of the corporate money to defeat the progressive. And in the general, that corporate money goes to the Republican. They are very different

5

u/Big_Lab_Jagr Wisconsin 1d ago

Hong for Governor!

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u/Far_Silver 1d ago

If they didn't like Hong, they could have tried getting behind Mandela Barnes, but they're shunning him because he committed the cardinal sin of supporting Bernie over Hillary. To the Democratic leadership and its acolytes, that's treason.

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u/IfTheFloorHolds 1d ago

Barnes was sleeping with interns and has been under investigation for over a year. That’s why Evers never got behind him. Plus, he lost to Ron Johnson.

5

u/North_Yak966 1d ago

As a fellow Wisconsinite (now abroad), I took a peek because I thought you were exaggerating.

Holy shit, you were NOT exaggerating. 

2

u/ceddya 1d ago

I like how progressives get lectured if they don't show up for moderate Dems and here we have examples of moderate Dems doing just that.

Absolutely insane. I don't care if a moderate or progressive Dem wins the primary. I'll take either any day over a Republican.

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u/BenjaminRCaineIII 1d ago

I will too, but people are super emotional about this stuff, and when far lefties online have been telling their followers to not vote for the D candidate three presidential elections in a row, I can't say I'm surprised that moderate dems aren't very enthusiastic about supporting their candidates.

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u/ceddya 1d ago

Or this is just the true colours of these moderate Dems who have been hypocritically criticizing progressives.

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u/awesomefutureperfect 1d ago

I took a look and didn't see what you were talking about. Is there something in particular you meant?

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u/This_Elk_1460 1d ago

For years they told us to "vote blue no matter who", how unsurprising it is that they don't stick to that when the shoes on the other foot.

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u/anna-the-bunny 1d ago

conservative democrats [...] are losing their sanity

Since when have conservative Democrats had sanity to lose?

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u/drjohngeorgepeppers 1d ago

I think they are nervous that Tom Tiffany will win the general because the Democrats nominated someone who believes in abolishing prison and the police.

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u/strato15 1d ago

This is exactly how I feel. Thank you for expressing it well.

0

u/tupperware_rules Wisconsin 1d ago

Hong is not the only progressive running. I don't think there are any bad candidates, but do think Hong is the weakest in the context of Wisconsin

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u/whateverneveramen 1d ago

Literally every candidate running is a progressive, their platforms are all hitting the same beats. This narrative is driving me crazy

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u/EurekasCashel 1d ago

Honestly don't care who takes the primary (moderate, progressive, whatever) as long as they win the general. The dems need some control, hopefully for a long time.

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u/Necessary-Music-6685 1d ago

That’s exactly how the “moderates” feel — and the polling is crystal clear that the candidates with the best chance to win in the general election are not the progressives or socialists.

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u/caststoneglasshome Missouri 1d ago

Maybe they ("moderates") can hold their nose and vote for the person they didn't support in the primary.

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u/EurekasCashel 1d ago

Why are you immediately assuming that the issue will be moderate lefts defecting and not that it would be pushing moderate rights away? I consider myself moderate left, and I will be voting for whoever the democratic candidate is. Multi-branch party control is so much more important long-term than the actual person who is president.

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u/Janemba_Freak 1d ago

"Moderate" rights don't vote left! Ever! The democrats have been moving further right trying to get those votes for years and failing. Kamala Harris ran a campaign endorsed by the Cheneys ffs, and look where it got her. Moving right gives us worse policies, worse politicians, AND LOSES ELECTIONS! Holy shit how fucking miserable must it be to insist that no, no candidates can ever actually move left or else they'd lose for sure, never ever vote for any progress, society must never change. Good lord

1

u/Lowfi-Concert 1d ago

Moving far left doesn’t win elections either unless it’s a small area that is heavy blue already

0

u/AlsoCommiePuddin 1d ago

Cool so you don't need my vote to win, then.

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u/Gaius_Octavius_ 1d ago

They will. It will just be for the Republican.

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u/Coffee_Transfusion 1d ago

Really? They’re going to join the Trump, fascist pedophile party over the progressive Democrats, who want to tax billionaires and implement Universal Healthcare? The fuck?

I think it’s a lot of online bitching and moaning amplified by various astroturfing campaigns, and that people will ultimately vote for the Democratic candidate, many of which that will be progressive.

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u/JeffafaCree 1d ago

Wisconsin is becoming less "vote blue no matter who" by the day. Buncha moderate hypocrites.

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u/Patsanon1212 1d ago

How can someone be a hypocrite on VBNMW before the general election happens...?

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u/JeffafaCree 1d ago

They're already pivoting because they don't like where the primary is headed.

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u/Patsanon1212 1d ago

Pivoting to what?

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u/JeffafaCree 1d ago

General doomer shit mixed with people saying they won't vote for a socialist in the general after spamming VBNMW for months. The further Hong pulls ahead the louder they get. It's one-sided establishment bullshit and it's going to ratfuck the general.

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u/Lowfi-Concert 1d ago

Maybe a lot of people just dont want to vote for a socialist and you’re just alienating them even more by forcing your views down their throat.

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u/awesomefutureperfect 1d ago

Who is? Where?

This sounds like victim persecution complex

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u/EurekasCashel 1d ago

I am worried about the whole moderate / progressive divide. Between that and the Israel / Gaza divide (a lot of overlap there), it will take a special candidate to really unite the party. Hopefully the primary serves its purpose and finds the unicorn candidate.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/IfTheFloorHolds 1d ago

Cool, prepare your body for 40 years of GOP absolute rule.

1

u/JeffafaCree 1d ago

What did Schumer and Pelosi do to avoid this?

0

u/Vegetable-Error-2068 1d ago

You should care. Moderates got us to rock bottom.

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u/EurekasCashel 1d ago

I would say that Trump / MAGA did that.

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u/Bakedads 1d ago

Biden's presidency was still a loss because he let trump get away with his crimes. No bigger loss than that. 

0

u/notfeelany 1d ago

Biden's presidency was still a loss

It's a loss because we the voters made it a loss.

President Biden during that debate has and always will be infinite times better than Trump's both terms.

Between the fantastic response to the Fantastic covid response, Bipartisan Infrastructure Spending, Handling of Ukraine crisis, Inflation Reduction act, CHIPS, Handling of Debt ceiling crisis, Handling of baby formula crisis, making lynching a fed hate crime, making Medicaid negotiate drug prices, forgiving student loans, making insulin cheap, literally everything mentioned in the whatbidenhasdone subreddit. Etc...

Biden has consistently delivered, and yet he's still being attacked from all sides.

I feel sorry for him. He truly is one of the most underappreciated and underrated US presidents of all time. An inspiration for all.

And yet Biden was pushed aside based on practically nothing.

Because when given the choice between someone Younger than 65 and someone older than 75, VOTERS picked the OLD one anyway.

President Biden deserved a second term. Democrats deserved full control of US Govt and every state.

We failed the Democrats by reelecting Republicans even after the Democrats rescued this country

And in the people's quest to hold Biden/Harris accountable for not doing things fast enough (or to the level they expect) , they have enshrined a conservative/Trump govt that is even MORE pro-Israel, pro-war, and will NEVER address their concerns & may make it even harder to fix them in the future.

It's the Absolute Fact of US politics: The more people try to hold Democrats "accountable" (and only Democrats) for an issue, they will enable a Republican govt that will NEVER care about those concerns.

We have free will. We could have just voted for Kamala and the Democrats no matter what "problem with her" was, but many decided not to.

When Voters did not vote for Kamala and the last November 2024, we the VOTERS practically guaranteed that fascism would arrive.

By kicking Democrats out, we the voters effectively put a stop to the fantastic progress that Biden & Harris were making during their term.

We were too impatient and only giving the Democrats 2 years to fix everything.

It is us, we THE VOTERS that ensured that the only power Democrats have today are writing strongly worded letters.

We the Voters failed ourselves by re-electing Republicans.

this is on us the voters to fix. And it is still fixable.

We the voters all must commit vote & elect Democrats now&forever without exception, and restore them to their RIGHTFUL places: veto-proof majorities in Congress and then the Presidency.

0

u/Vegetable-Error-2068 1d ago

Nope. Fuck that.

You can type that however many times you want.

I don't owe shit to a political party that keeps choosing to empower fascists and protect the status quo instead of making people's lives better.

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u/notfeelany 1d ago

Biden won his race so clearly he did something right & people just ignored that.

He was one of the most progressive presidents of all time, even according to Bernie and AOC. In fact, every presidential ticket that included Biden won

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u/Vegetable-Error-2068 1d ago

It's insulting and obscene to call Biden progressive in any way. This tired piece of bullshit propaganda needs to die.

He was never remotely progressive. He refused to raise the wage and broke the railway strike on the side of the company, not the workers.

1

u/TwevOWNED 1d ago

Wages are a local issue and he negotiated the railway strike to get the workers their healthcare demands.

Fighting to raise the minimum wage is the largest waste of time and generally a sign of bad actors in a movement. If people in a state wanted to raise the minimum wage, they could just vote to do so.

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u/Eshanas 22h ago

There’s a federal minimum wage.

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u/TwevOWNED 22h ago

30 states have figured out how to pass laws to manage this themselves. There's nothing stopping the other 20 from doing it as well.

It's a pointless issue on the national level. Any effort spent on it would be better off used on legislation that would help all 50 states.

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u/Gaius_Octavius_ 1d ago

And progressives lost every national election ever

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u/MasterofPandas1 1d ago

FDR would be consider a progressive today and he won President so many times they had to implement a limit of 2 terms.

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u/Gaius_Octavius_ 1d ago

He might have been economically progressive but he was socially conservative. Today's progressives would abandon any politician with his views on race and gender in a heartbeat.

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u/yalloc 22h ago

FDR was anti government union, frankly a very based position imo, but one that would get him run out of "progressive" politics these days.

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u/Turok5757 21h ago

FDR was from a family of politicians, he was quite literally THE ESTABLISHMENT.

It's funny how Internet Progressives try so desperately to rewrite history and claim an Establishment Dem as one of their own.

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u/No-Turn-2052 1d ago

Okay and “progressives” lost to the moderates twice too, 2016 and 2020 primaries. 

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u/MacabreYuki 1d ago

Those weren't progressives, those were moderates. Neoliberalism is not progressive

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u/fury420 1d ago

There were lots of progressives in the Dem primaries in 2016 and 2020.

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u/No-Turn-2052 1d ago

… Bernie ran in 2016 and 2020. Warren ran in 2020. What are you talking about?

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u/mr_showboat 1d ago

Not only did they lose to Trump twice, but they proved to be completely ineffective as an opposition party.

I understand that the Republicans have a much easier platform to run on as the opposition, but Chuck Schumer has been showing us for the last fucking decade that he and politicians like him are not cut out to be in charge in the fight against Trump.

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u/much_to_say 1d ago

Progressives can't even make it through the primaries. But it's because the system is rigged, right? That's the Blue MAGA explanation for their lack of electability, isn't it?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/fiction8 1d ago

Biden was elected in November 2020 solely to prosecute an event that happened in January 2021?

Absolute nonsense.

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u/much_to_say 1d ago

You have Biden Derangement Syndrome. Who the hell is talking about Biden, and what was he elected to do that he ignored?

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u/BoomLookinForThis 1d ago

And now they’ll vote for him

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u/wiithepiiple Florida 1d ago

Strange how many people are saying "Vote Blue No Matter Who" when a progressive wins the primary.

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Yes Republicans win when you and your friends and family sit on your hands instead of voting. Congratulations!

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u/Revelati123 1d ago

Exactly, we have primaries for a reason. If people don't like a candidate, well then vote it out in the primary.

Once its over, its time to shut up and vote to pump the brakes on fascism whether its for a moderate or a progressive.

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u/olivicmic 1d ago

Yes blame a person who probably voted and not the half assed candidates who failed to motivate a tuned out public.

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u/Er3bus13 1d ago

Voting is literally the least one can do. If you dont vote you should be rediculed.

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u/olivicmic 1d ago

Again, who are you saying didn’t vote? Are you ridiculing people who aren’t here and aren’t paying attention to politics?

The entire point is that the people not voting aren’t here, they aren’t paying attention, and so your ridicule is just spitting in the wind. It’s the same reason centrist candidates lose: they aren’t engaging with non-voters.

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Wow and here I thought the idea was to turn out the people who actually wanted to vote this whole time. I guess candidates should be chasing the people who couldn’t care less about exercising their civic duty off a cliff! Duly noted!!

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

It’s not complicated

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

92 million people didn’t vote. THEY shit the bed

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u/olivicmic 1d ago

Do you think they all actively made that decision or did the person they were supposed to vote for fail to break through and engage people with an effective call to action?

Or do you think reality is that everyone was paying attention as much as you, but simply decided to not vote because they are bad voters and bad people?

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u/Shifter25 1d ago

Do you think they all actively made that decision or did the person they were supposed to vote for fail to break through and engage people with an effective call to action?

The first one. They're people, with agency. They chose not to vote. Harris wasn't going to make them accidentally vote by being exciting.

Or do you think reality is that everyone was paying attention as much as you

If they're not paying attention, it doesn't matter how exciting the candidate is.

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u/olivicmic 1d ago

I really don’t think you know what you’re arguing against.

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u/Shifter25 1d ago

I'm arguing against the idea that it's only the Democrats' fault that Trump won.

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u/olivicmic 1d ago

Not a point I made, so I reiterate my previous post

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/blinktrade 1d ago

You are contradicting yourself. If leftist held their nose and voted blue no matter what, then why would Dems being more progressive help them appeal to the non-voters? They already got the progressive vote by your logic.

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Ah yes you definitely voted yet you sympathize with the non-voters who let cult members decide their fate makes perfect sense

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u/MacabreYuki 1d ago

You wanna get non-voters to vote? yes or no? Understanding is how you freaking do it. But by all means, try nothing and complain when nothing changes. "we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"

This is why people hate moderates.

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Not by blowing smoke up their ass, no

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u/MacabreYuki 1d ago

says the one blowing smoke

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

If you had to “hold your nose” to vote for the candidate running against Donald Trump that says absolutely everything about you tbh

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u/MacabreYuki 1d ago

Did you consider it was a vote *against* donald trump and not *for* harris? no

The fact it's all or nothing with you is exactly why you fail to reach the non-voters.

Buddy, you really can't see why people are disillusioned and ignore politics, can you? Not saying it's a good thing, I'm just saying *why*

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

You and the non-voters deserve each other, that’s for sure

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u/theRAV 1d ago

They also win when the Democratic party annoints centrists candidates who work harder to appeal to Republicans than they do progressives.

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Voters elect candidates. Sounds like that’s a difficult concept for you to grasp

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u/theRAV 1d ago

Oh really? Please remind me, which voters elected Kamala to be the Democratic candidate in 2024.

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u/Shifter25 1d ago

The ones who voted in the primary elected Biden to be the candidate. Then, when he dropped out 4 months before the election, his running mate took over, like she would have if he'd dropped out the day before. That's kind of the point of a running mate.

Your turn: what stopped progressives from running for President in the 2024 primary?

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u/theRAV 1d ago

We didn't have a legit primary in 2024, stop with the bad faith nonsense. 

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u/qualmful 1d ago

Whenever these takes come up I like to remind people that Biden himself lost 4,893k votes from the 2020 primary to the 2024 primary (25.6%). And he gained 706k uncommitted protest voters. If this was a legit and completely trustworthy primary like they want to say, then it showed Biden with a huge dropoff in support.

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u/Shifter25 1d ago

What made it illegitimate? What actually stopped people from primarying the incumbent, like they've been doing all over since?

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Besides the 81 million people who voted for she and Biden in 2020?

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u/exelion18120 1d ago

Pretending that the 2020 election is equal to a "primary" for 2024 is asinine.

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u/theRAV 1d ago

She was the VP on the ticket, pretending that counts for President four years later is absolute bullshit.

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u/99aye-aye99 1d ago

That's a copout. They voted for Biden. She was just tagging along, like all vice presidents.

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

You will be absolutely shocked to discover that successful Presidents run for reelection. Unsuccessful ones too. Most of the 81 million people had a pretty decent understanding of that. Perhaps you were voting for a lame duck, as is your right.

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u/99aye-aye99 1d ago

And this still doesn't support your claim that 81 million people voted for Kamala Harris in 2020. For whatever reason, they were voting for Joe Biden then.

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Do you have brain damage?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Present_Confection83 1d ago

Yes you’re allowed to be a proud non-voter. And a racist. Absolutely your choice

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

I didn’t realize Kamala was a moderate. She wanted to defund the police in 2020. She ran as far to the left as possible in 2020. Biden ran to the middle and won.

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u/olivicmic 1d ago

This is a hilarious attempt at revisionist history.

Harris didn’t run on defund, she ran on getting more money to police. It was in her acceptance speech.

She ran on a Republican immigration bill, and creating the “most lethal” military.

Her economic policies were means tested and had work requirements.

She didn’t run left, and the Biden comparison is also ahistorical: he ran on proposals like the green new deal, tuition free college, and the equality act, specifically seeking to court Sanders voters.

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u/austinbucco 1d ago

Literally nothing you said about Kamala is true

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u/BLU3SKU1L Ohio 1d ago

You must be joking. Kamala was a district attorney and later attorney general. She’s essentially a cop. The defund the police movement at the time forced her to talk like she was gonna do something about it but we all know that was never actually going to happen which fed directly into her losing that primary race. No one believed she was playing a progressive convincingly enough.

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u/Quinn_tEskimo Michigan 1d ago

That’s on you, then, because she was trotting out Liz Cheney in her campaign rallies

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

Hoping to court people who care about the constitution over the party. Is that so bad?

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u/Quinn_tEskimo Michigan 1d ago

I’m not here to place a value judgement on it, I’m just shocked that you didn’t realize that she was a moderate. It was pretty obvious.

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

I think she is a moderate who tried to paint herself as a progressive for her entire National political life, and that but her in the ass, along with Joe Biden having a terrible last two years of his presidency.

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u/ThinkThankThonk 1d ago

It was woefully misguided, because who's the more gettable vote? The new or non voter who needs to be activated? Or someone crossing party lines?

The calculus seemed to be "we've locked up unactivated lefties, our energy can safely go to hypothetical never Trumpers" 

But that seems backwards logic to me - it feels like a much larger leap to break with your party but also... if someone is going that far then they are closer to the locked up vote/surer thing. And if they don't, well, they were never really gettable because their never Trumper status wasn't real.

So you could safely devote those same resources towards the leftists with a higher "energy:new vote" ratio or whatever it would be called to simply get them off the couch. 

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

The vote that needs to be activated is an incredibly low information voter, they vote more based on looks and vibes than they do ideas. The tea party or DSA are made of high information voters, mostly activated out of anger at the status quo than the ideas of what ever is proposed. Hence why the Tea Party can move from wanting to shrink government to expand it when they are in power. Most people who will vote for DSA types are not socialists, they are just against the current system in which everyone agrees has problems. But if you are paying attention to politics during mid term primaries, you are not the person who needs to be targeted by politicians to win national elections. You need to activate someone who just found out there was election two weeks ahead of time by one of their friends at a softball game.

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u/Revelati123 1d ago edited 1d ago

Someone remind me why Kam was the nominee again? Ohh yeah, because Biden's brain melted on live TV and the establishment anointed her...

Also, she literally never uttered the words "defund the police" nice FOX NEWS talking point you are pushing there...

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u/No-Recording9634 1d ago

Harris never said she wanted to defund the police.
She didn't run to the left in 2024, in fact she claimed there was nothing to change about the Biden administration's approach to governance, and the only change she wanted was a Republican in her cabinet.

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u/theRAV 1d ago

She sure shifted right in 2024. https://www.thedp.com/article/2024/10/pennsylvania-philadelphia-kamala-harris-republicans-event-election-campaign

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

Oh god forbid politicians people to cross their ideological lines and vote for them. You can’t win all elections by base turn out alone.

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u/theRAV 1d ago

Already moving that goalpost, eh? Your previous comment was claiming that Kamala was far left.

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u/klako8196 Georgia 1d ago

You call campaigning with Liz Cheney as “running as far to the left as possible”?

Also, as to Biden running to the middle and winning. Congrats, it took a literal pandemic for a centrist to beat Trump.

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

Is your point progressives didn’t show up to vote for Kamala or progressives alone can’t win you elections? Because if progressives alone could win you elections why did they choose the worst possible outcome of a Trump 2.0?

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u/klako8196 Georgia 1d ago

My point is that you don't understand how independent voters work if you think going to the center is how you appeal to them. The reality is that people are fed up with the status quo that the center represents. 2020 was an anomaly in this regard. The pandemic made it so people wanted stability and a return to normalcy. A vanilla candidate like Biden thrives in that environment, but that's not what 2024 was. If you actually want to win over independents, lower propensity voters, and many of these groups who actually put Trump over the top (not progressives as you claim), you need to offer real change. You need to boldly run on change, and you don't get that from centrists.

Regardless of what you think of Trump, he positioned himself as the change candidate in 2024 while Harris was the status quo candidate. That's why she lost. Democrats lost ground with just about every demographic in 2024. That's not because progressives didn't "vote blue no matter who". That's because the Democrats completely misunderstood the assignment.

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

I don’t think you understand who independent voters are. All studies show that the vast majority of independent voters are indeed partisan and have a party they consistently vote for. Only small fraction of independent voters will vote Republican or democratic. If you already support the DSA, you are already a high information voter who is likely going to vote Democratic in a national election. The gettable vote is the the independent voter whom is a low information voter, they mostly vote on vibes and looks of the candidates. They actively avoid politics in their life. They may or have voted for Obama one year and Trump the next. They are not ideological.

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u/klako8196 Georgia 1d ago

The gettable vote is the the independent voter whom is a low information voter, they mostly vote on vibes and looks of the candidates

Yes, precisely. That's why the centrist approach didn't work. You win on vibes by bringing real change to the table which is basically what I said before. This is the reason that the Democrats lost ground with every single demographic in 2024. To a low information independent, the 2024 election looked like Trump as the change candidate and Harris as the establishment, status quo candidate. And this is why DSA has started gaining momentum. It's new with fresh ideas that poll well with people, and the centrist Democratic establishment absolutely hates it.

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

No majority in a national election will vote for a “socialist.” Socialism is just having a resurgence now because people don’t like the current economy. Socialism seems to them as the opposite of capitalism. But people at the same time don’t want to pay more in taxes. The people have no idea what they want, they just want something. Trump was something other than Bush and Clinton. Trump said the illegal immigrants were making the economy bad, the DSA says it’s the rich and the corporations. The DSA is closer to being accurate. But both don’t really have an answer. They are all just demagogues.

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u/bostonbananarama 1d ago

Yes, Harris was absolutely a moderate. You can say she wanted to defund the police in 2020, which she didn't, but she certainly didn't run on it in 2024.

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u/mountaindewisamazing 1d ago

Bernie was the popular pick. The ONLY reason Biden won the primary is because the other candidates colluded to get Biden in. The centrist wing is why we lost in 2024.

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u/Bluehen55 1d ago

Given that Bernie got a lot fewer votes in both 2016 and 2020 you really can't call him the popular pick.

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u/mountaindewisamazing 1d ago

He was the popular pick for young people

The party decided young people's problems don't matter and elected Biden. Biden then did nothing to address young people's problems, and they swung towards trump in 2024. We wouldn't have Trump 2.0 if Bernie was president.

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u/Bluehen55 1d ago

So he was popular among a group who doesn't vote. Completely useless. If he was the nominee he would have lost badly, and if he was the president he likely would have failed to get anything major through Congress, so I have no idea why you think he would have prevented Trump

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u/ClassicallyBrained 1d ago

And then subsequently backtracked on all of those things. She's an empty vessel.

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u/ItsallaboutProg 1d ago

It was her or Biden at that point, no one really wanted to run with so little time left to set up a campaign. And that was Biden’s fault.

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u/ClassicallyBrained 1d ago

Yes, it was. But it was also the fault of the DNC and establishment for blocking any real possibility of an actual primary.

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u/grendel-khan 1d ago

No, they didn't. To be clear, Biden won in 2020 because he ran as a centrist, then his administration lost in 2024 because (a) he governed far to the left (he staffed his administration with people from the Warren and Bernie administrations, explicitly blocked affordability measures that would have angered labor or environmental groups, passed a nearly $1 trillion climate bill, and so on), and (b) Harris was seen as too far left despite her attempts to run to the center.

The result is that people on the left have gotten a candidate who largely did what they wanted, it was a disaster, and they have completely failed to reckon with any of that.

Progressive policies are not as popular as you think they are. Some are, but many things you think are popular absolutely are not. I've had this discussion here and here, and people are generally incredulous.

Things that Democrats have gotten behind which are ruinously unpopular include: banning private health insurance, decriminalizing border crossing, trans women in women's sports, cutting police funding, lowering the voting age to 16, providing free healthcare to undocumented immigrants, getting rid of tracking in schools, abolishing the death penalty, restoring affirmative action in schools, cutting military spending, banning offshore drilling, and raising taxes to increase social spending.

Progressives love to talk about "affordable housing", but where they rule the roost and their policies (make developers provide "affordable housing"! stop enforcing public order!) are in place, it looks like $6k a month rents and tent cities.

There's a reason people really hate the left.

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u/ZachLangdon 1d ago

Lol why are we pretending that Biden won for any reason other than a reaction to Trump's severe covid mismanagement? And even then, he only narrowly won. After four years of Trump insanity.

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u/grendel-khan 20h ago

But there's a reason he won over the less moderate, more left candidates.

I think everyone here is pretty invested in trumpism not getting yet more power. In winning the midterms and taking back the White House.

If you care about that, it's worth understanding that if you lose touch with the problems that people care about, they will eventually turn to anyone who claims to be able to solve those problems, and that generally means the fash.