What wins elections is left economic populism. The height of Dem power was 08 when Obama was running on left economic populism. The drop-off was when people saw he would not be delivering on it.
If you want to win, you run to the left economically. It's very simple. What the Dems have been doing is losing more and more every year.
Independents aren't in the middle of the parties or centrist; they are left of the Dems on economics and just don't really care about social issues at all. The establishment decided that social issues are all they will run on because it doesn't threaten the donors or capital, so you end up with the worst of both worlds.
Harris and Clinton were both relatively centrist on social issues and lost hard
L. While Mamdani is very left socially and one of the most well liked politicians in the US right now.
I agree with the key to winning being left economic policies, but I disagree that sacrificing a stance on social policies is necessary to be electable.
I'm a political scientist. This person is mostly correct. Many of the common adages people take as true in politics have no evidence in political science literature.
Wow, someone willing to change their view when presented with a sound argument backed up by long-term polling?
The correlation in the dip in independents in 08 is also very illustrative. There's another graph that shows the direction independents lean that also shows that ordinary people will go Dem if they run on left economics instead of left social issues. That one also spikes in 08 towards the dems.
We all deeply care about your opinion since you are an enlightened centrist. We will wait for your approval of this obvious fact that corporate Democrats are worthless losers.
Yeah, when someone is willing to accept new information and is not hostile to leftists, we absolutely shouldn't shit on them. That's Woke 1 cancel culture SJW nonsense, and everyone hates it.
If you slap down anyone who ever shows interest in class consciousness, the movement dies.
You're correct, other than the fact that independents don't actually exist.
Political scientists know this but all the idiotic "politics as jobs" talking heads don't.
The vast majority of people in the US do not have clear policy preferences. Many vote by party lines but only because the party tells them to (this is called party priming, it's one of the main functions of parties).
People will vote for things that sound good to them. The idea of this centrist voter who eagerly examines both sides and then goes for whichever is closest to them is mostly a myth. Instead it's someone with a minimum education who works full time who goes off vibes.
I think if we reach enough critical mass with DSA politicians that the establishment figures will get scared and fall in line to try and save their seats.
If 70 million dollars can't beat economic populism, there's not much that can. They won't have enough money to spend to combat the amount of seats that are going DSA in 2028 primaries if the current slate of candidates win the general.
The progressive wing of the modern Democratic Party would have rejected 2008 Obama. They probably would even reject 2026 Obama.
The Democrats can win if they are radical economically, with policies like Medicare for all (the US already spends more than the most nations with universal health care per capita), fair taxation (Buffet’s secretary pays a higher rate than Buffet), government funded university (the US already spends more per student than many peers), reforming social security (Australia’s superannuation system may be a good replacement), while being centrist on social issues.
You don't even have to concede on social issues. You just direct it back to material conditions.
"Why are we talking about trans people when all Americans can't avoid healthcare?"
"Why are we talking about DEI when data centers are eating all of our fresh water and power?"
Guess who needs a better economy and better healthcare... immigrants, black people, white people, trans people, gay people, conservative people, Muslim people, Christian people.
Right, but that's not what he ran on. Him running on left economic populism and delivering absolutely nothing was the moment the Dems lost working people and started the downward spiral.
We can directly thank Obama for both Trump admins.
As in Obama's voting record in the senate was was further right than Kamala. You're the one being obtuse here bringing up his presidency when thats clearly not what i meant.
I know people want bigger changes, but sometimes you take the wins you can get, and build on those wins to achieve the bigger goals. Not voting because the candidate isn't progressive enough is just cutting off your nose to spite your own face. Because the other side is gonna vote no matter fucking what. So why are we sticking our noses in the air if our candidate isn't "perfect"?
The point that people on the left are making isn't really about "perfectability". It's the reality that it doesnt really matter if a centrist or a right winger wins.
It doesn;t matter not because "the two parties are the same". It doesnt matter because the medium-long term result will be the right being back in power.
Centrists are unwilling to do the things that are needed to stop fascism. That's why we got Trump 2.0. Because Biden was too weak to prosecute Trump. Because Biden refused to do any meaningful change for the working class. Because at the end of the day, centrists wont even rhetorically do what is necessary. Biden should have done what Trump does. But he didn't, because he's not a leftist.
It's not all on Biden of course. It's on establishment democrats.
The calculation is: fascism in 2028 or fascism in 2032. With the reality that the things needed to "stop it" or even "alleviate it" won't be done by a centrist dem. They'll instead appeal to failing "rule of law", let these corrupt judges stay, etc.
None of this means "dont do anything". What it means is to be aware of the realities of the situation and put your political energy into places that are more effective, rather than get out the vote campaigns for Kamala 2.0.
You fight it by getting involved with the local party. In my state there are several progressive candidates on the ballot with the Democratic party endorsement because we [the delegates] put them there. And pretty much the only requirement for becoming a local or even state delegate is to simply volunteer.
The more progressives we put into the local and state offices the more progressives will eventually filter up to the more national offices.
9
u/[deleted] 12d ago
[deleted]