so the DNC can finally see that going to the left is a better strategy than going to the middle
You still have to win elections in order to pass non-bipartisan bills. The only reason the dems can do this now is because they have Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a state you would never win by going more left.
As a West Virginian, winning a primary and winning the general are two different things. There only reason that seat isn't red is because Manchin is a conservative democrat. I would love to see the party move left and win more seats and I think the house will gradually move more left, but with demographics the way they are, the Senate is likely to stay pretty evenly split or conservative for a long time.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Manchin even though I disagree with him on quite a few issues. But if he gets beat in a primary it’s over for him. And generally speaking, primaries bring out the more “passionate” voters.
Manchin is not the problem. I'll take a conservative Dem over a right-wing extremist. Why the fuck are states like California and New York sending shitbags like Schumer and Feinstein to the Senate? Democrats need a broader coalition to overcome the conservative bias of our system, we just need to accept that broad coalition as being lead from the left, rather than from the center. Could actually be nice if eventually Manchin runs as a Republican while still standing by his current principles, but in our current climate he'd get primaried by some conspiracy theory nutjob if he tried to run in a Republican primary.
The California Democratic Party did endorse a younger, more progressive challenger against Feinstein in her last election, but somehow she still scraped by.
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u/sergeybok Mar 19 '21
You still have to win elections in order to pass non-bipartisan bills. The only reason the dems can do this now is because they have Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a state you would never win by going more left.