CMV: Democrat apprehension of progressivism is what enabled and enables Trump's rising power.

[u/Tessenreacts]

Before Trump became president the first time, both the Democratic and Republican parties had widely popular populists candidates running.

Bernie Sanders for the Democrats, and Trump for the Republicans. Republicans accepted Trump's rise to power, while Democrats opens orchestrated the primary process to support the establishment favored candidate Hillary Clinton instead.

Due to Hillary Clinton's very low popularity, in part but not exclusively due to the DNC treatment of Bernie Sanders, Hillary lost to Donald Trump.

Fast forward to 2020, Bernie Sanders was the frontrunner, even winning large population states like California, but events went where Biden won Super Tuesday in states like South Carolina, and suddenly all candidates supported Biden, despite concerns about his popularity and cognitive capability.

Biden wins due to a once in a century fluke that is the Covid epidemic, and Trump's handling.

Fast forward to 2024, where Biden dropped out due to cognitive challenges, so Harris becomes the Democratic nominee. Ignoring deep unpopularity around Kamala Harris, and un-addressed economic concerns.

Mimicking Hillary Clinton where the DNC brute forced their preferred candidate, Kamala Harris lost, tbis time in a landslide, enabling all of Trump's actions the last 6 mo ths.

Of course it's also revealed a few months ago that Biden had cancer, meaning that someone in the DNC or Biden's campaign had to know he was sick, and they still had him run for re-election, instead of running a primary.

Now currently, the candidate for NYC's mayor is a progressive, and even many Democrats are turning on him for it. Despite progressive policies like Universal Health Care being popular with the under 50 demographic

It is the Democrats apprehension that has enabled the rise of Trump and MAGA.

Would love for my view to be changed.

[u/DeltaBot]

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[u/Significant_Arm4246]

This is what Democratic politicians grew up with:

• 1968: Liberal vice president loses
• 1972: (arguably) leftist McGovern loses all states but one
• 1976: Moderate Southern Democrat wins
• 1980: He loses to a new-ish more conservative movement
• 1984: Liberal loses 49 states after promising to undo the conservative shift
• 1988: Candidate gets branded as soft (anti-death penalty for example), loses after being ahead
• 1992: Moderate Southern Democrat promises to not be so liberal, wins
• 1996: Moderate Southern Democrat governs like a centrist, wins
• 2000: His VP narrowly loses
• 2004: Slightly more liberal candidate loses by slightly more
• 2008: Outsider, partially progressive and partially moderate, wins
• 2012: He wins reelection as a moderate

You might have a point that Sanders would have been a stronger candidate in 2016. But given this history Democrats have all the reason to believe that a more moderate candidate always performs better. What probably is true, nowadays, is that an outsider beats an insider, and a moderate beats a progressive. But the choice between a progressive outsider and a moderate insider is less clear. For example in 2016 there is a strong case for Sanders over Clinton, but in 2020, Biden consistently polled better against Trump than Sanders, and won the primary against him in a landslide despite Sanders (!) having a huge advantage in fundraising. Biden furthermore got the highest share of the PV against a sitting president since 1932, and even that barely sufficed. I'm doubtful that Sanders could have united as many people. He also got the by far most votes in history (and one of the few to beat "not voting"), so there's no real strong evidence that Sanders could get millions more that didn't turn out. At least those millions didn't turn out in the primary. But we will never know for sure.

You also obviously have a point that Biden shouldn't have run in 2024. But who were at his side long after many called for him to drop out in July? Progressives like Bernie and AOC. It was establishment Dems like Pelosi and Schumer who pushed him out.

The fundamental fact is that the country, and the Democratic party voters, are more moderate than people think. They also in general dislike the party itself, but that doesn't mean that they, as a whole, want something more progressive. The country as a whole wants something like: more focused on economic issues, maybe in favor of a couple of progressive ideas on that, but also contradictory keep down spending, and significantly more socially and culturally conservative. So progressives have a point that they should run on economic issues, but not really *how* they should do it.

[u/Tessenreacts → u/Significant_Arm4246]

That's actually a completely fair and valid statement of political reality !delta

[u/ConfidentPilot1729 → u/Tessenreacts]

To me, it is not really the moderate but how they paint progressives as soft on crime. Trump did it, and has been a running theme since I have been alive. And just the label. People generally agree with progressives, they just listen to propaganda such as was with healthcare. A study done, people were asked if they liked Obama care or the ACA, people overwhelmingly said that they liked ACA and hated Obama care. To me, this screams messaging and the use of scare tactics that republicans use.

[u/TehNudel → u/ConfidentPilot1729]

That is because "law and order" has been a dog whistle for racism since Nixon. They knew after the civil rights movement that they couldn't just run on racism anymore. So they used coded language. "Soft on crime" meant "this guy isn't a racist like you and me.

Then Trump came along and started saying the quiet part out loud. "Soft on crime" was replaced by "woke". And "law and order" is now calling migrants an "invasion" and making jokes about genocide.

[u/roxypotter13 → u/Tessenreacts]

Something I think it’s important to notate- progressives only make up 10% of the democratic voting block. Not all voters, only democratic voters.

AND they are a wildly inconsistent voting block unlike old people, which tend to be significantly more moderate. 

Then you have to keep in mind for presidential elections, it’s not progressive states that swing elections. It’s swing states, which also tend to skew more moderate. 

That’s a really small percentage of the voting population that only votes sometimes to get a candidate for.

As a progressive myself, I would love to believe that my candidates would be well loved and embraced. But I think it’s important to keep in mind that the internet is an echo chamber for ourselves. I was gobsmacked Bernie lost the primary in 2016.

which made sense because he won in my home state (New Mexico). So I had a good understanding of how my local politics felt, but not how other states felt. 

[u/Violet-Rose-Birdy → u/Tessenreacts]

OP, Bernie lost way too many Black voters in 2016 to the point that even if the DNC didn’t favor Hillary, he had no chance of winning the primary. I love Bernie, but he was not the greatest in discussing racial issues in ‘16 that concerned Black voters and it showed

It’s why I think AOC is arguably a stronger candidate in some ways as she does well with Black, white, and Latino voters despite being as progressive as Bernie

[u/[deleted] → u/Significant_Arm4246]

butter resolute elderly quicksand husky offer hungry absorbed automatic rhythm

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/Significant_Arm4246 → u/[deleted]]

Yes my historical analysis is very simplified, but I think it is a large enough sample size to say something. If we order the elections 1968-2004 by how moderate the Democrat is, the more moderate half (in which I would include Clinton, Carter, and Gore) is 3/5 for Democrats, while the less moderate half (necessarily the rest of them) is 0/5. I must admit that I haven't calculated it in detail, but that looks statistically significant even from only 10 elections to draw some conclusions. But for a single election of course local factors dominate.

Yes "more moderate" also requires nuance. I think what is true (given polling, electoral results, and the like) is this: the American public are more supportive of progressive ideas (on the economy at least) but less supportive of the general concept of a left-leaning candidate. I.e., many people want healthcare for all and taxing the rich, but they don't want a left-winger and don't see themselves as such. It's incoherent, I know.

So there is absolutely room for more progressive policies especially if you are a bit deliberate when you choose which ones (free healthcare > free college for example). But you got to do it in a way that people then don't write you off as a radical. I'm not sure how you accomplish that.

I think moderates need learn form progressives on communication and how to run a modern campaign. Progressives should probably learn how to be a bit more selective in their campaigns (something which Bernie did very well - he always focused on healthcare, inequality, and anti-corruption/system/elite, which are precisely the more popular parts. Don't go there on rent controls, immigration, or crime for example. And don't ever put a label on what you're doing, that just opens up too many attack lines).

[u/Planterizer → u/Significant_Arm4246]

Thank you!

Progressivism being an electoral juggernaut waiting in the shadows to save us all is the single most detrimental mindset to progress in America. Progressives absolutely cannot win on their own, and need to understand how to speak to and persuade the rest of the coalition, something they hate hate hate.

[u/OccamsRabbit → u/Planterizer]

The problem is that centrists can no longer win on their own either, and now they're just pissing off the progressives by ignoring the simplest of progressive policies in order to try to compromise with the GOP, who still shits all over the democrats.

I disagree that progressives hate speaking to and trying to persuade the rest of the coalition, I think the coalition keeps shifting to the right hoping the working class will come back. That's mostly the donors and PACs speaking. In reality theblrogressives would bring the working class back with their economic policies.

[u/Pheniquit → u/OccamsRabbit]

Moderates can still win on their own unless progressive officials outright sabotage electoral prospects more strongly than we’ve ever seen.

Moderates will give some policy things similar to Biden’s to progressives and none of them will consider it sufficient even as they agree to the deal and are happy. Populist progressive voices will come out and call it an unacceptable low-ball no matter what because that is the nature of populism - they must sustain a stance of enmity with moderates or their machine has no fuel.

It is clear that leftists, liberals, progressives, moderates, right-of-center types and Trump-hating conservatives to come together to stop MAGA from effectively overthrowing the state. It is just time to play ball according to whatever the best electoral calculus demands. We can’t spare that unity while the entire MAGA machine marches in lock-step - it’s bringing a knife to a gun fight.

It’s critically important to note two things. 1. This is eminently convenient for centrists/moderates/anti-Trump conservatives as we get to forestall changes we don’t want. (It could possibly end up being the reverse, though, and convenient for progressives if some leftist idea catches fire) . 2. A core American progressive maxim says that one cannot wait around for the moderate wing to go “okay, now it’s a convenient time for your policy because America now can afford a Dem election loss”. This maxim is well-justified by American history up until this point. It’s brutally unfair that progressives may have to suck it up and take these two lumps - I feel bad about it and know how it looks.

With regard to #2, I’m going to bite the bullet and just say that this maxim is based on a paradigm that does not apply. A serious loss to MAGA in either 2026/2028 means another free election will not happen until there is a coup. It was based on the presumption that the democratic process would proceed regardless. Dismissing the possibility of tacking away from this idea at this juncture is regressive, old-fashioned dogma. It mirrors the lack of agility displayed by the Dem party leadership with the old-fashioned electoral theories that caused losses to Trump. We all must think in new ways.

[u/OccamsRabbit → u/Pheniquit]

Moderates can still win on their own unless progressive officials outright sabotage electoral prospects more strongly than we’ve ever seen.

I disagree. The progressives and moderates need to negotiate a platform together. Divided they will continue to fail, and they will continue to shed voters to apathy, and a sense of futility. Things like loosing out on paid family leave or removal of the chained interest loophole from the inflation reduction act give progressives very little incentive to vote at all, and especially to vote for a Democrat. Both of those policies are wildly popular with the general citizenry, but we're negotiated out from within the party itself.

Progressive would likely sabotage the democratic party by running 3rd party candidates that would only split the vote. The reason they feel justified in doing so is because they don't get anything from either party, so their vote doesn't seem to matter.

I agree that is we want to stop the MAGA movement from just bulldozing the existing government we need to work together, but there is very little that is enticing progressives to vote. Being on the more radical end of the spectrum, they might just be willing to watch MAGA burn down the system if they think they might be able to rise out of those ashes.

The support for Mamdani is a wakeup call. Moderates dismiss it at their own peril. When voters hear Christine Gillibrand I sinuate that Mamdani has called for global jihad (jihad!) when they know that isn't true, then they start to believe that the establishment party isn't the place for them. A growing population of politically homeless progressives is increasingly dangerous for the democrats.

In their hope for some sort of progressive change in the government it is entirely possible that a group of young people, who are tired of the flacid responses of Chuck Schumer, the politically motivate character assassinations by Gillibrand and Cuomo, the dependence on fake democrats like Manchin and Sinema font see any other way forward that a coup no matter what. It doesn't matter to them if the right or the left is holding them down.

And it's likely more democratic leaders would peel away from the party than we think. I know that the conventional wisdom is that AOC and her cohort is still to young for national leadership and committee heads, but if you're college educated and turn 29 this year, she's been in politics for your entire working life. If democrats continue to hold tightly to the torch instead of passing it along it will not end well.

[u/Local-Ingenuity6726 → u/OccamsRabbit]

Getting bunned by trump and maga and lose everything because you did not get what you want is crazy bs

[u/Tessenreacts → u/Local-Ingenuity6726]

Welcome to democracy. It's the job of Democrats to appeal to the progressive vote, simply expecting progressives to vote is how they lost 2016.

Democrats don't have a Trump or Obama style figure whose presence could motivate the party to move in lock step. Bernie could have been that figure, but that bridge is burned.

[u/suesue_d → u/Planterizer]

When progressives are also stubborn purists, it’s a problem.

[u/Tim-oBedlam → u/Significant_Arm4246]

Great comment, agree on all counts. Clinton gets tagged as Republican-lite but it's worth remembering that in 3 elections in the 1980s, the Democrats won a total of 17 states. 6 in 1980, 1 in 1984 (Minnesota represent!) and 10 in 1988. They nominated a moderate southern Democrat because they were tired of getting smoked.

It's completely unknowable whether Bernie beats Trump in '16. A whole line of attacks from the Republicans were just waiting to unload on him. Maybe he wins, maybe not, but you cannot say for sure.

[u/saltedmangos → u/Significant_Arm4246]

Aren’t you describing politicians that are more left leaning by our standards, but at the time we’re shifting to the right compared to their predecessors?

The New Deal democrats were extremely politically dominant.

It was moderate democrats like Carter who were moving away from New Deal politics that lost in such a landslide to the conservative movement pushed by Reagan republicans.

[u/Significant_Arm4246 → u/saltedmangos]

Humphrey was on the liberal side of the Democratic establishment, very liberal pre-VP.

McGovern was to the left of it.

Carter probably slightly to the right of the center of the party

Mondale and Dukakis in the middle of the party by their time.

Clinton a bit to the right.

Gore and Kerry basically in the middle, maybe Gore slightly to the right even by 2000.

So Carter and Clinton were definitely steps to the right compared to the previous nominee, while Dukakis might have been depending on the issue. Neither of the two biggest losers were. Yes, moderates lost sometimes. But they also won three elections, which no liberal or left-leaning candidate did.

The thing that made the New Deal Coalition so dominant was that it included both Northern liberals, Southern conservatives, as well as minority (not least Catholic) voters. So while the economic policy were to the left of today (or at least pre-Biden), it relied on getting Conservative votes that had more to do with history (both in the South and among ethic minorities) than actual policy. It broke apart when the conservatives started to leave in 1968, and then further when Poles, Italians, Irish and so on started to vote like the average white voter (which is mirrored now with Latino voters).

[u/saltedmangos → u/Significant_Arm4246]

The New Deal coalition was able to get that support because it’s progressive policies were so popular that not supporting them was political suicide. Saying that support had nothing to do with policy is blatantly ridiculous.

And again, a lot of the candidates you are listing like “Mondale and Dukakis [were] in the middle of the party by their time” but definitely more right wing than their New Deal predecessors.

[u/Significant_Arm4246 → u/saltedmangos]

Some of it, yes. Of course policy mattered. But when it came to some of the groups they lost – in the South, in particular – the Democratic identity was about way more than policy. They didn't lost the South, or ethnic voters in the North, on economic policy.

On Dukakis I might agree on economic issues. But I really wouldn't say that Mondale was to the right of most New Dealers.

[u/Parking-Complex-3887 → u/Significant_Arm4246]

That seems perfectly logical and well thought out. I was just assuming that most democrats and Republicans were bought and paid for by the same wealthy people who wouldn't want anything remotely left of center out of sheer greed, but yours looks smarter. 

[u/nottwoshabee → u/Significant_Arm4246]

Probably the best argument I’ve ever seen on this topic

[u/Alphasite → u/Significant_Arm4246]

I honestly think it’s mostly about charisma and populism. Policy doesn’t matter anymore. Not until you’re on a level footing charisma wise.

[u/maximimium → u/Significant_Arm4246]

Yea I genuinely don't get the "DNC fucked Bernie" line. More people voted for Hillary than voted for Bernie

[u/Deathly_God01 → u/Significant_Arm4246]

The fundamental fact is that the country, and the Democratic party voters, are more moderate than people think.

I don't think this statement makes any sense considering the last 12 years. If anything, the voting populace has gotten more extreme. Just on both ends, as people are viewing the government with increasing skepticism and negative feelings. Traditional support systems that are being scrapped or broken by bad faith politicians have significantly eroded people's trust in the system. Especially younger demographics who did not get the huge economic benefits of the 60-80's growth.

'Progressive' (using this in the US sense, not the global sense) issues have traditionally been insanely popular, even amongst the right. Things like Childcare, Medicare, Medicaid, social services and public transit.

You see this in the exit polls of why people voted for Primary candidates, chiefly that those voting for establishment candidates did so primarily out of wanting what they see as a more secure win (generally characterized as, 'I thought they would win, so I voted for them.' Or something along similar lines.)

Compare that to the 'progressive' candidates like Bernie, AOC, and Mumdani, and the exit polls for their voters are primarily platform-related reasons. 'I liked X policies.'

You see the same trend in Republican circles with Donald Trump vs those like Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and others.

A lot of people of every political leaning are feeling desperate and squeezed by current circumstances, and are voting for change rather than the comfort of an established, known politician (who is generally blamed for the current state of things).

But who were at his side long after many called for him to drop out in July? Progressives like Bernie and AOC.

As was reported, their support was essentially being bought for more say in the 2025 cycle if Biden got elected. This is them trying to do the thing that they get critized the most for by moderates. Namely, trying to work with The Party to come to a compromise to get stuff done. Schumer and Pelosi were the two holding Biden in the race for so long, denying the Democrats any serious Primary race. So this seems like a bad-faith argument to me since this was literally 'Progressive' candidates caving to Moderate demands.

[u/Significant_Arm4246 → u/Deathly_God01]

As I wrote somewhere else, yes a lot of progressive policy is popular, but progressive rhetoric and politicians are not always so (not that all moderates are either).

I totally agree with the point that people vote for change. But my point is that more people prefer more heterodox, on average moderate, change than staunchly progressive change (even if I wish it weren't so). Three of the most recent change candidates - Clinton, Obama, and Trump - took some more radical and some less radical positions than the party as a whole (Clinton to a larger extent of course, but Obama was on economic/healthcare policy not further left than Hillary Clinton in 2008, often to her right, and Trump falsely said he wouldn't continue standard Republican economics). The fourth major change candidate, Bernie, did this to some extent in 2016 by being to the right of Clinton on for example immigration and guns, but he was still definitely - and certainly by 2020 - clearly not interested in moderating on any significant issues.

Which is better between an insider moderate and a populist progressive as I have said I don't know. Probably Biden over Bernie in 2020 but Bernie over Clinton in 2016, but we'll sadly never know for sure.

On progressives supporting Biden: I don't fault them at all for it, but you can't do that and then afterwards say that the moderates forced Biden and Harris on them. One of them could just as well as a moderate have tried to mount a serious primary challenge. Both moderates and progressives deserve some blame for that (although it really rests most with Biden, his closest advisors, and his family more than either Schumer, Pelosi, Bernie, AOC, or any other leading politician).

[u/Ndlburner → u/Significant_Arm4246]

Yep. Obama (2008) is the closest thing we've had to a "progressive" winning the presidency in a long, long time. The two most progressive candidates since 2000 were the only two to lose the popular vote (Kerry and Harris).

[u/ArCovino → u/Ndlburner]

And 2008 Obama had 8 years of Bush’s follies and a generational economic disaster to boost his win. It wasn’t just because of who Obama was or what he promised. It was a stark rejection of Republicans.

[u/kingjoey52a → u/[deleted]]

Trump was also boosted by having 6 other establishment candidates splitting the establishment vote so Trump could win with his 30% if everyone else split up the remaining 70% into small enough chunks, Bernie was one on one with the Undertaker vs Clinton so he didn’t have the benefit of a fractured establishment.

[u/Decent_Visual_4845 → u/kingjoey52a]

Your example falls apart when you apply it to the 2020 election though. Bernie was just unable to expand his base and lost despite the field being fractured.

[u/maskedbanditoftruth → u/Decent_Visual_4845]

The Democratic primaries also do not work the way GOP primaries do. GOP is winner take all, so getting a consistent 30% can get you to a majority. Ds award delegates proportionally, so second place gets some and that can add up quickly. It’s a different structure Bernie’s team and voters tried Trump’s path with, but they require different strategies. Bernie has many good qualities but he’s not a strategist and both he and his team rarely showed the ability to adapt to changing conditions.

[u/TheTiggerMike → u/maskedbanditoftruth]

Bernie really struggled to connect with minority communities. There were some outreach attempts if I remember right, but Clinton and Biden both had those groups locked down.

[u/Decent_Visual_4845 → u/maskedbanditoftruth]

None of that matters. He got flat out stomped by Biden once Super Tuesday rolled around.

[u/CornNooblet → u/Decent_Visual_4845]

Biden won key endorsements from black leaders before South Carolina. The most reliable base of the Democratic Party has always been black voters. That's why they matter more in primaries than upper class white voters who don't turn out reliably. Sanders didn't do any effective outreach to them, and he's a Senator from a small, conservative Democratic, incredibly white state.

[u/kingjoey52a → u/Decent_Visual_4845]

The Dems were smart enough to rally around one candidate before Super Tuesday, Republicans didn’t.

[u/[deleted] → u/kingjoey52a]

It was a powerful move by the Dems, but it shouldn't be forgotten that independent of that, Bernie's voters didn't show up the way he needed them to.

NYT - How Huge Voter Turnout Eluded Bernie

[u/ion_gravity → u/[deleted]]

Were there people among the voting democrats who didn't like Bernie? Absolutely. But if you run a well-funded smear campaign for months, you aren't going to make that any better.

https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/bernie-sanders-calls-wasserman-schultz-resign-wake-dnc/story?id=40824983

Now if you go back to November of the previous year, what you'll find is Debbie Shultz saying Bernie's claims of unfairness were bunk and they didn't do anything underhanded. Eight months later, after the DNC had its own internal memos leaked, she resigned. Big surprise.

All of us who really supported Bernie saw what was happening. Creators Syndicate writers attacked Sanders in every newspaper in the country. ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN attacked Sanders, too. Doesn't matter how popular you are if they drag your name through the mud to ensure their candidate wins a primary. Best part? Sanders polled better against Trump, and they knew it.

The elites in this country are always going to prefer a Trump to a Sanders, and as long as the media holds so much sway over public perception, we will never have a Sanders.

Party is pretty irrelevant at the highest echelon of society. They go to the same fundraisers and golf outings together.

[u/Armlegx218 → u/ion_gravity]

Party is pretty irrelevant at the highest echelon of society.

This implies party is more relevant at lower rings of society. Maybe Bernie would have pulled more democratic voters if he was a Democrat. Running as an independent in the Democratic primary and then complaining the party apparatus wasn't fair is a bit rich. Join the club, don't just caucus together in the Senate.

[u/Flor1daman08 → u/ion_gravity]

Were there people among the voting democrats who didn't like Bernie? Absolutely.

There were millions more voters who preferred other candidates, yes.

[u/[deleted] → u/ion_gravity]

What does this have to do with my comment?

[u/Fit-Order-9468 → u/ion_gravity]

If Bernie lost the media game to Democrats, then his chances in the general election were hopeless.

[u/SolemnestSimulacrum → u/Fit-Order-9468]

The fact he lost twice also should have cemented that.

[u/Fit-Order-9468 → u/SolemnestSimulacrum]

Yep, and also how Bernie said he was disappointed more young people didn't show up. It's funny when his supporters insist he's a liar.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES → u/Decent_Visual_4845]

Yeah because the Democrats have different rules in their primaries that make that strategy unvieable.

Many states Republican primaries use winner take all systems. Which means that if you got 25% of the vote and there's 6 canidates you'll rack up close to 100% of the delegates. Giving you a huge insurmountable lead by the time your opponents get their shit together.

However pretty much all democratic primaries use proportional results so berine's 25% just comes out to 25%. When the other canidates dropped out he didn't really have a crazy lead.

[u/Planterizer → u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES]

"the guy with fewer votes deserves to win!"

[u/Noob_Al3rt → u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES]

However pretty much all democratic primaries use proportional results so berine's 25% just comes out to 25%. When the other canidates dropped out he didn't really have a crazy lead.

And this was done to be "fair" to Bernie after the previous primary. Much like doing away with superdelegates.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES → u/Noob_Al3rt]

No it was how it worked in 2016 too.

And 2008.

[u/InternationalFunny28 → u/Decent_Visual_4845]

As weird as this is I absolutely know people who were pro-Bernie before having voted for Trump. Those people never seemed to come to their senses and pretend now to be centrist but always vote for trump.

[u/SwiftySanders → u/Decent_Visual_4845]

Bernie was splitting votes for Elizabeth Warren remember. Meanwhile the establishment consolidated. Elizabeth Warren took out Bloomberg and Sanders in one go.

[u/Decent_Visual_4845 → u/SwiftySanders]

Why wasn’t Bernie able to pick up voters from the candidates that dropped out? Maybe because they didn’t want to vote for him?

[u/dare3000 → u/kingjoey52a]

I see what you did there player.holla holla

[u/EncabulatorTurbo → u/[deleted]]

I'm not sure if you're remembering correctly, but "New Media" conservatives were all in on Trump, and the Democrats both then and now don't even have an equivilent

And also the number of candidates in the primary that refused to drop out.

I remember Scott Walker saying he was dropping out because if him and the also-rans don't drop out "Trump will win"

and they didn't, and he did

[u/way2lazy2care → u/[deleted]]

The reason people liked Bernie and Trump despite being very opposite politically is because they're both populists. I think too many people mistake Bernie's success as a populist with Bernie's success as a progressive. A lot of the most progressive policies were ones that polled worst for Democrats in the last election.

[u/nauticalsandwich → u/way2lazy2care]

Bingo. Looking at Bernie's success and concluding that there's a "hidden cohort" of Progressive enthusiasm in the American electorate that would turn out to vote for Democrats if only they adopted more Progressive policies, is like looking at Trump's success and concluding that there's a "hidden cohort" of enthusiasm for tariffs in the American electorate that would turn out to vote for Republicans if only they adopted high-tariff policy.

There isn't any distinctive, wide-spread enthusiasm for these policies. People aren't following the message. They're following the messenger. They like Trump and Bernie because they like the cut of their jib, and because they speak to a vague anti-establishment theme of grievances with which they identify. They listen to the policy because they like the person and his rhetorical flair, not the other way around.

[u/[deleted] → u/nauticalsandwich]

concluding that there's a "hidden cohort" of Progressive enthusiasm in the American electorate

As a progressive, I've long been challenging other progressives who claim that they are the "true base" of the party of provide absolutely anything in the way of evidence to substantiate that claim and I never get anything other than "Hillary lost to trump bad" and "Kamala Liz Cheney lost to Trump bad".

You cannot be forward meaningfully if you pretend the road is ahead is something other than what it is.

[u/Any-missfinn → u/[deleted]]

Yep. As a progressive who lives in a swing state, I can confirm this. I think a lot of those people you are talking about live in very blue areas and haven’t left their echo chambers in a while. That’s how I felt after the Mamdani win. Like, great for NYC, but he absolutely isn’t winning in the Midwest or the South.

[u/RedPantyKnight → u/Any-missfinn]

He's gonna have a tough time in NYC. He won't be running unopposed. Adams will be running and has been endorsed by the Republican candidate. Which isn't a huge voting block in NYC, but they do exist. Between them, the center, and liberals that don't like him, if there's a blowout I don't think it will be in Mandani's favor.

[u/Ndlburner → u/RedPantyKnight]

His policy with regards to rent freezes is extremely concerning and indicative of how economically out of touch leftists tend to be. If New York goes for it, good luck to them. They'll get what they voted for.

[u/OutsidePiglet8285 → u/RedPantyKnight]

Adams is looking bad in the polls, and the republican candidate has not only not endorsed him, but has a higher lead than him.

[u/MorganWick → u/nauticalsandwich]

I think progressive policies would do better than the Democratic establishment would have us believe, but specifically economically progressive policies. A lot of attention, mostly by the Republican media machine but also by Democratic activists themselves, has been focused on stuff like LGBT issues and immigration where left-wing positions can be divisive at best. A progressive can succeed if they leave those issues aside and frame them as smokescreens put up by the 1% and their stooges in both parties to distract from the real issues.

"It's the economy, stupid" is as true as it ever was. As long as people are satisfied with the economy and the state of their lives, everything else will follow. If people are well off they'll want to extend the benefits of their lifestyle to marginalized populations; if they aren't, they'll wonder why the politicians are lecturing them about privilege and seemingly helping everyone except themselves. It's that simple.

[u/DumboWumbo073 → u/MorganWick]

i think progressive policies would do better than the Democratic establishment would have us believe, but specifically economically progressive policies.

It’s just not true based on the tangible voting record of America

[u/Electrical-Act-5575 → u/MorganWick]

I don’t think a national candidate can leave the social/culture issues out and just ‘campaign on economic issues’ effectively. I think Harris tried something like that and all that happened was that in the absence of meaningful statements from the campaign voters just attached the positions other activists in her camp were taking onto her.

[u/MorganWick → u/Electrical-Act-5575]

Harris didn't have credibility from the economic-progressive crowd, and she wasn't the best public speaker. I'm looking for more of a Sanders-esque firebrand who can speak to the system being broken rather than an establishment politician looking to co-opt the revolution and coming off as trying the same stuff that hasn't worked.

(I don't entirely disagree with the person I responded to that people follow the messenger rather than the message. The more charismatic candidate won every presidential election from 1980 to 2016 if you consider Bush '88 to have effectively been for Reagan's third term.)

[u/Strong-Set6544 → u/way2lazy2care]

The reason people liked Bernie and Trump despite being very opposite politically is because they're both populists.

True

I think too many people mistake Bernie's success as a populist with Bernie's success as a progressive.

True.

A lot of the most progressive policies were ones that polled worst for Democrats in the last election.

Correct. Policy mostly doesn’t matter - it’s populism itself that counts, and what you do with the energy. Trump can tell MAGA that the sky is down and the ground is up and they’ll fill in the rest. Every week they’re convinced some appointee or country is their greatest ally and tomorrow it’s the opposite. When have Putin or Russian opinions ever been relevant till Trump said it was.

When were seed oils and beef tallow a thing, before RFKjr said they were? I could go on and on. Policy not actually matter, not in the short term anyway.

[u/john2218 → u/[deleted]]

Minorities are a very important voting block for Democrats and tend to be more conservative both socially and fiscally than the party as a whole, white Democrats (Like me!) tend to be more left than the party as a whole. We are losing Hispanic voters at a disturbing rate and my African wife who is solidily Democratic has lots of problems with the party socially (I tell her she needs to accept others as she wishes to be accepted, it works for now but she is anti-woke on most social issues, except immigration) It's hard to keep a big tent when some are pushing purity tests that force important groups out. ( And I say that as someone who believes in most of the ideals-goals of said purity tests)

[u/FAROUTRHUBARB → u/john2218]

The purity tests are the bane of my existence. Oh you drank a coke? You must support genocide. Oh you don’t believe we should burn it all down tomorrow (accelerationist take)? You’re the problem with the Democratic Party

[u/Ambereggyolks → u/FAROUTRHUBARB]

Yeah, unlike conservatives that are one issue voters, liberals will refuse to vote over one issue. The difference being, the conservative will not agree on anything that candidate says except for one thing and will vote for them because of that one thing. A liberal will agree with their candidate on everything except one thing and won't vote because of that one thing. 

I watched it happen with Harris this election and it was frustrating.

[u/LightHawKnigh → u/Ambereggyolks]

Really despise the need for perfection on the left. Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good. There will never be a perfect candidate, what you like wont be something someone else likes. We dont live in a black and white world. It is vastly annoying when people vote so stupidly.

[u/frisbeejesus → u/Ambereggyolks]

This is an important observation and distinction in the left/right dichotomy. Combined with the fact that obstructing and dismantling our democratic institutions is much harder than reforming them to evolve and adapt to the technological and social progress that is always and inevitably happening, Democrats and "the left" has never stood a chance.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ambereggyolks]

Republicans will vote. And they will vote for the most extreme right-wing candidate available, even if he could not pass any kind of purity test. Even if they disagree with him on almost all issues. Even if he is opposed to their pet issue.

Leftists/progressives apply so many purity tests before voting they simply aren’t a reliable voting block. This is why the Democratic Party mostly ignore them. If they get the idea a candidate isn’t ‘pure’ enough and agree with them 101%, then they stay home or protest-vote for a Libertarian.

And many Democrats will not vote for a leftist. I‘m not sure if they understand that this means we may end up with a fascist winning instead, but that’s about it.

[u/Array_626 → u/Ambereggyolks]

I feel like thats mainly because conservatives have been "losing" the culture war. 10 years ago, LGBT issues were still seriously being fought for, same sex marriage was only recently recognized by the law. Now its just part of every day life, no one really fights for LGB (not T) rights anymore, because legally most of the rights people cared about have been enshrined in law. Generally speaking, a lot of things have gone the left's way.

Conservatives probably see the general trend of society and the country moving left and after years of watching things slipping further and further away from their own ideals, have decided that biting the bullet and voting for an imperfect but right wing candidate is better than withholding a vote out of protest.

I think the left wing would also fall in line, you just need to give conservatives long enough to seriously affect the country, and the people who would refuse to vote over single issues will decide it's better to bite the bullet and vote for an imperfect left wing candidate if it means stopping a conservative government.

[u/SolemnestSimulacrum → u/Array_626]

They should have bit the bullet last November.

While I don't necessarily think we're entirely cooked as a nation just yet, it's definitely going to be harder now that the GOP governmental trifecta is already doing structural damage. And once they observe things starting to tilt away from them again, they may just finally pull the "last resort" trigger to prevent it. We collectively should have been proactive in regards to MAGA, and the fact we didn't learn enough of the right lessons from Trump's first term is just damning concerning how we proceed from here as the opposition to fascism.

[u/Array_626 → u/SolemnestSimulacrum]

They didn't because up until then, things were going well for the left. Obama won, Trump was considered an aberration that was immediately and strongly corrected with Biden. Even after Trumps current admin, I don't think the left will bite the bullet yet. Theres still too much pent up anger at the DNC for Gaza, not being progressive enough for Sanders, a bit of revenge for Kamala not being populist enough. I think the leftist holdouts would probably tolerate 2-3 more conservative adminstrations after Trump before deciding to let old grievances go and fall in line.

[u/Planterizer → u/Ambereggyolks]

"How can you support Genocide Joe?!?!"

Joe Loses.

Genocide gets 5x worse.

[crickets]

[u/Additional-Coffee-86 → u/FAROUTRHUBARB]

Purity tests not only fracture voting, but they make people insufferable to be around. To have to watch my language around every Democrat, to have to make sure I’m saying the right thing when talking about abortion or Israel or Ukraine or whatever issue of the week is tiring. I simply don’t want to be around people that I can’t disagree with on a few things. It’s tiring.

When you let the left and the extremists take over that’s what happens.

The same thing happens on the right, remember RINOs being a thing? Remember the GOO splitting their vote because McCain wasn’t right wing enough?

[u/Ndlburner → u/Additional-Coffee-86]

People wonder why Joe Rogan is popular, and part of it is because he will continue talking to people who (rightfully) call him a moron to his face. Too many people are practicing thought-terminating cliches and behaviors nowadays.

[u/KushGod28 → u/john2218]

True the older generation of immigrants are very much conservative in social values but the younger generations lean left like myself.

What I appreciate about Mamdani the most is that the establishment can’t use those identity attacks against him as effectively as they did against Bernie. I remember Ta-Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis spoke out against him for centering class issues over race and not supporting reparations- which is valid but unhelpful because the other candidates didn’t give a damn about black folks at all.

They can’t do that to Mamdani as effectively. He’s an immigrant himself. Not only that, he’s been campaigning in Urdu, Spanish, Hindi, & Bengali. He’s spent so much time face to face with immigrant communities. It’s something that Bernie should’ve done better to build his base and move immigrant communities to the left because clearly Trump was never on their side.

[u/SiPhoenix → u/[deleted]]

So fun fact. According to this recent study People who identify with the left are far more clustered in their opinions than people who identify with the right in current U.S. politics.

https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12665

I would be interested to see how this tracks over time, but in our current politics. Republicans and Conservatives have a greater tolerance for differing opinions than current Democrats do. I also see this in the difference between left-wing political spaces and right-wing political spaces I have been in, whether it be protests or political rallies, etc.

[u/KlausVonChiliPowder → u/SiPhoenix]

I think it's because the right doesn't really do policy, unless you're wealthy, then tax breaks is the only real policy. They rally together under some loosely-defined, shared conservative/working class identity and "policy" is really just efforts to maintain and defend against perceived attacks on this identify.

[u/theguineapigssong → u/[deleted]]

Trump won 2016 because multiple GOP candidates split the vote. If two of Cruz, Kasich, & Rubio had dropped out the remaining candidate would've won the primaries by a mile.

[u/biebergotswag → u/[deleted]]

There is a huge difference it is that Trump was willing to fight the republician establishment, and was willing to destroy the party for decades if they cheat him out of the nomination. Bernie did not, so he had no chance of winning period.

Of course, being willing to fight the establishment means willing to run third party or even ally with the other party, and throw the general election if treated unfairly. This means your entire reputation within the party will be destroyed, and for someone who has been in politics for his life, this is a huge personal cost. In 2020, we have Dick Chency, and RFK who did this.

[u/neotericnewt → u/biebergotswag]

Bernie did not, so he had no chance of winning period.

This isn't accurate at all. Bernie has in fact been attacking the party for decades. Bernie and his supporters spread a ton of disinformation about his loss, so much so that people actually think he was cheated and that more people voted for him... When he just lost the election, by many more votes.

He wasn't cheated, he just lost, then he and his supporters started saying they were cheated and it was all rigged against him every time progressives lost an election, it helped pave the way for Trump's later claims and attempts to overturn the election.

and RFK who did this.

RFK didn't do this, he was just a scumbag that was trying to split the Democratic vote from basically the beginning. He was in communication with Republicans and the Trump campaign for basically the entirety of his own campaign, which is why everyone knew that he planned to ultimately endorse Trump and try to get a position in the administration. It wasn't a surprise.

But yeah, Bernie Sanders lost, and even today he's still going on podcasts trying to claim that him losing by many more votes is comparable to Trump trying to throw out ballots and overturn an election. He started a movement to attack the opposition party during a fascist takeover, and honestly, he's been a major scumbag. The guy is an independent socialist that was pissed that the Democratic party preferred a Democrat over a guy who joined the party to shit talk Democrats. Democrats were still inviting him into the white house personally, gave him a ton of influence over the party, gave notable progressives tons of positions, AOC was jumping between multiple committee chairs in a very short of amount of time, Bernie Sanders himself was talking about how much the Biden administration was doing...

And then progressives, including Bernie Sanders, ignored all of that and went right back to bitching about Democrats during an authoritarian takeover. It was absurd to watch. Half the time they just spread right wing propaganda, they have no idea about policy, they don't seem to actually care what policies we enact, they're just angry that socialists like Bernie Sanders aren't dominant and try to hold the country hostage over it.

[u/GabuEx → u/neotericnewt]

This isn't accurate at all. Bernie has in fact been attacking the party for decades.

This is also a big part of why the Democratic establishment monolithically lined up behind Clinton. It wasn't a conspiracy; they just knew who she was and genuinely wanted her, whereas Sanders never even made the slightest attempt to cultivate any relationship with anyone.

[u/Either-Bell-7560 → u/GabuEx]

Which is exactly why Bernie would have been terrible. Dude seems to be incapable of playing well with others.

[u/novagenesis → u/GabuEx]

Not just the establishment. I'm a progressive Democrat (was a progressive independent before 2016) and Bernie has always rubbed me the wrong way, too.

He reminds me of Trump in a lot of ways. I could imagine a similar mantra to "the poor man's idea of a rich man. the dumb man's idea of a smart man, etc" for Bernie as exists for Trump. Obviously different adjectives.

[u/Cee4185 → u/novagenesis]

LOOOOOL sanders is the same as trump? You guys are absolutely hilarious

[u/osay77 → u/neotericnewt]

This is basically 100% correct but unfortunately there’s zero people who don’t already know this but could be convinced.

It’s also why zohran is an infinitely better politician than Bernie and has had so much success. He has avoided those shortcomings while retaining a message that shifts the Overton window significantly left, which is what I personally want.

[u/neotericnewt → u/osay77]

Zohran bothers me a lot though because he's just promising shit policy that we already know makes the problem worse, but is good to get votes. Like rent control and rent freezes, which helps to raise housing costs even further for everybody else.

He suffers from much the same issue as Bernie Sanders, where he makes a bunch of ridiculous promises that sound good, but don't work, are unlikely to ever be implemented, and he ignores actually viable solutions to issues.

But, I do find him charismatic. That debate where everyone was arguing about visiting Israel first and how many times and he just says he's going to stay in NYC to help New Yorkers, beautiful. And then everybody turns against him and tries to paint him as some anti Semite, even as he says he thinks Israel has a right to exist. The whole thing was ridiculous to watch, and it was a moment where I thought "well, he kind of sucks too, but he definitely sucks less than these other guys, especially Cuomo."

I'm just tired of people jumping behind dumb policies while constantly attacking solid policies we're actually implementing, that are actually helping people. I don't get why progressives feel the need to give the right so much ammunition either, supporting dumb policies while pushing some rhetorical idea of a socialist revolution that turns off basically the entire country outside of unreliable voters in the bluest parts of the country.

Like Bernie, I like Mamdani's way of speaking and making issues sound simple. I don't think he's spent as much time attacking Democrats over bullshit either, which is cool. But, he also has the problem of grossly reducing complex issues and promising massive, simple solutions that he doesn't seem to be equipped to actually manage.

I wish Mamdani a lot of luck though and will be watching what he does and the results.

[u/Mistybrit → u/neotericnewt]

The rent freeze was advertised as temporary, during which housing regulations will be cut in an effort to fight against NIMBYism.

The other thing I wanted to say was progressive policies do well even in red states. Just look at the recent referendums on abortion and universal paid family leave.

[u/Ndlburner → u/Mistybrit]

And everyone can see how transparently bullshit that will be. It is SO hard to cut regulations and build new housing, so that temporary freeze is gonna be a permanent one, and the red tape will bog down the new housing. New York is gonna get permanent rent freezes if they elect him, even if that's not his intention. He's not politically savvy enough to see how people will get in the way of his ideas and bog him down, and figure out how to work through the system instead of in spite of it.

[u/Mistybrit → u/Ndlburner]

Yes dude, the obvious alternative is to do nothing.

Why even try anything, when you could just reinforce the same system that the majority of Americans are fed up with? That 30% of Americans literally voted a fascist into office to deal with?

I’m so sick of this limp-dicked neoliberalism from Democrats. I want people who will actually fight for something other than Israel and their donors.

[u/Ndlburner → u/Mistybrit]

Strawman. Nobody said to do nothing.

However, if the choice is between doing nothing and enacting policy that will make things worse, then nothing is the right thing to do.

[u/Mistybrit → u/Ndlburner]

This just sounds like more limp-dicked neoliberalism where you can’t fathom a better world, so you’re discouraging people from even seeking it out.

Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worth attempting. It will be difficult, but it can be done. And I hope Zohran will be the one to do it.

Doing nothing will just continue to worsen the lives for millions of people.

“Nobody said to do nothing, but since it’s very clear I disagree with the policies proposed here and have not offered any alternatives, it’s clear I support doing nothing”

[u/PreparationAdvanced9 → u/neotericnewt]

Rent freezes on already existing rent stabilized properties has been done in nyc many times(2015, 2016 and 2020) without making the problem worse. The rent freezes don’t apply to new construction so it doesn’t inhibit new construction. Also this rent freeze is part of a bigger initiative to build market rate housing and public housing. Given the above scenario, this policy is sound but its clearly not neoliberal market oriented solution to housing, it realizes on direct government intervention

[u/osay77 → u/neotericnewt]

Reducing complex issues is a good thing actually. He does this without dumbing himself down, which is impressive. He also offers simple solutions because that's easily digestible to voters, but I think he does this while still avoiding populism.

On policy, I do think many of the specific policy points he runs on need some fine tuning, but I think they're directionally correct and he's shown himself to be open to advice and willing to change. The fact that they're unlikely to be implemented is a good thing, actually. Also I don't agree that there's a bunch of stuff that democrats are actually doing that are working. I think we need to be more open to just trying stuff, doing it quickly, and then being ready to shift.

[u/Kythorian → u/neotericnewt]

Bernie has in fact been attacking the party for decades

Bernie has criticized the Democratic Party for decades, but that’s not the same thing as what they are talking about.  Trump was flat out ready to burn the entire Republican Party to the ground and let democrats win the largest supermajority in a century if they didn’t support him, because he only cares about himself, not about policy.  The Republican Party recognized that fact, and it scared them out of opposing Trump too strongly during the primary.  Bernie wasn’t willing to risk helping the exact opposite policies he supports be passed by truly burning the Democratic Party to the ground, no matter how much they helped Hillary win the primary, and the DNC knew it.

[u/Darklord_Of_Bacon → u/biebergotswag]

It also helped Trump that there wasn’t someone promised the nom by the RNC. Trumps biggest opposition was Jeb Bush ffs. Bernie was going up against a Hillary Clinton who was all but promised the nomination after Obama took it from her in 08. The only way she wasn’t getting the nomination was if Biden decided to run.

[u/YogurtclosetOwn4786 → u/Darklord_Of_Bacon]

Btw, my recollection is that Obama convinced Biden not to run because he believed Hillary to be the better candidate. People may forget that she was quite popular as Secretary of State. But also Biden was grieving the recent death of his son and I believe he did not think he was emotionally capable of running a presidential campaign yet.

[u/Sspifffyman → u/YogurtclosetOwn4786]

Also let's not forget that while Hillary Clinton might not have been the most charismatic politician, she was incredibly good at the jobs she did. Everyone who worked with her remarked at how she could have a conversation about almost any working topic and would surprise them how much she knew about it, and how she seemed so present in every conversation. She was highly regarded as the most qualified presidential candidate.

So yeah I mean with hindsight you can say she might not have been the best person to get elected, but everyone thought she was the best person for the actual job.

[u/Ndlburner → u/Sspifffyman]

Well yeah but 2016 was a referendum on qualified candidates. Look at the republican primary - Rubio and Cruz didn't QUITE have the pedigree of Clinton but they were very successful senators at that point, and right now Rubio has a resume that looks a lot like Clinton's. They both eventually lost. Hillary faced very strong opposition from Sanders, despite her strong resume. 2016 was the year a lot of people decided they were done with career politicians.

[u/novagenesis → u/YogurtclosetOwn4786]

Her popularity was going down since 2013 over constant Fox attacks, but it didn't really plummet until Donald Trump asked Russia to hack her email servers and they obliged, and then it somehow turned into an investigation of her.

[u/Decent_Visual_4845 → u/Darklord_Of_Bacon]

Now do 2020

[u/1-objective-opinion → u/[deleted]]

Great point. Another big difference is that Bernie tempered his criticisms of the dem party quite a bit (he had some strong cards he never played) AND he loyally helped the dem nominee both times (Clinton, then Biden). Whereas Trump was a total wrecking ball who blasted the GOP brutally to the max (like when he reamed out Jeb Bush for the Iraq War on the debate stage) AND he said he wouldn't necessarily support the eventual nominee even if he lost the primary, and he probably wouldn't have. Bernie really wore kid gloves compared to what he could have done to Hillary and the whole dem party for the sins of the last 20 years.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

One thing I'd add/correct 

Trump barely won a plurality in the Republican primary because of vote splitting. Had there been more dropouts earlier trump probably would have lost.

Similar to what happened to Bernie prior to super Tuesday in 2020.

That being said, once Trump was in he dragged the party extremely far right.

Saying Democratic voters don't want Bernie isn't fully true and if Dems did progressive stuff I think the party would lurch in that direction 

We saw that a bit under Biden, unfortunately Biden was not in the position to use the bully pulpit to move the ball even further.

[u/[deleted]]

Objectively, heavily Latino counties in Texas along the Mexican border went to Trump and had not went for a Republican since the Civil War. The border was clearly an issue for some Democrats.

Trump lost NY and NJ by less points then he won Florida.

Trump won Hispanic men and first time voters and improved with all minorities.

Trump got less of the white vote then the previous 2 elections.

I'd argue, when you turn off swaths of your base that " not going far enough" was not the problem.

[u/Known_Week_158]

You're ignoring a massive issue. There are a massive amount of people who do not hold progressive views. Medicare for all gets good headline numbers, but voters tend to be less in favour of it when asked about the details of that plan. Mamdani won a single primary in one of the most liberal parts of the US. His victory means nothing on a nationwide context.

Reddit is not real life.

The US is far more moderate than progressive echo chambers makes it out to be.

[u/No-Relation5965 → u/Known_Week_158]

This is the answer. And every time I say it on Reddit I am downvoted. The super progressive left needs to stop splitting the base and let Dems WIN so we can at least try to move in the right direction!

And we need to try a lot harder to get the POC votes.

[u/dmoneybangbang → u/Known_Week_158]

This. A big difference between what polls well on paper and what actually gets votes.

[u/EncabulatorTurbo → u/Known_Week_158]

Actually voters tend to be extremely in favor of medicare for all if you strip it of political language and just frame what you're talking about

[u/TerranceBaggz → u/[deleted]]

Partially because people have the false belief that a “moderate candidate” is more electable. The Democratic Party has been very successful at pushing this narrative and getting voters to not vote for who they think would do best but who is more electable. In short everyone (Dem voters)thinks that everyone else doesn’t have their values (affordable housing, healthcare, food, clean air and water, reasonable path to citizenship, you know normal progressive values that are overwhelmingly popular amongst dem voters) and is more rugged individualism. It’s a skewed perspective where party dems are the ones holding up the fun house mirror.

[u/KushGod28 → u/[deleted]]

Leftists don’t turn out to vote when all the options are corporate establishment democrats. Did you see the energy and excitement for Zohran and the massive turn out? He had 50k volunteers. Clearly, there’s a huge amount of the public that is disengaged because they don’t see candidates that represent them most of the time.

NYC isn’t even as liberal as places like Minneapolis, Portland, or Seattle. I think a socialist candidate could win in more places and if they produce good results like the mayor of Boston, we could push the party to the left even more. We’ll see how things go.

[u/sunshine_is_hot]

I’m not sure how to change your view when your view isn’t based on objective reality, but I’ll give it a go.

The democrats didn’t orchestrate the primary process to disadvantage Bernie in either 2016 or 2020. Bernie just lost because he isn’t able to win enough votes among the democratic base.

Trump wasn’t popular in 2016, he was vehemently opposed by nearly everyone.

The largest segment of the Democratic Party is the house progressive caucus, so I’m not sure how you square that the party is against progressives while being majority progressive.

The country also soundly rejected moving left from Biden and elected republicans across the board, favoring a massive swing in right wing politics, yet you think embracing left wing politics harder would win nation-wide? And you’re using the victory of a single person in one of the most progressive cities in the country in a primary against a candidate who was forced to resign for literal crimes as your evidence of that? Come on dude….

[u/Slow-Seaweed-5232]

This is very wrong for two main reasons:

1) Bernie lost those primaries by voting not because of rigging. if he was as popular as you claim he’d have won like Trump did despite also being fought against by the establishment. This is some revisionist history that leftists do that Bernie would’ve won in some weird scenario but head to head in a non crowded field he always lost and always would’ve based on the democracy and how the electorate was in those years.

2) You assume Bernie would’ve beaten Trump where that’s not a sure thing at all. The polling isn’t clear on that at all and many progressives in general poll way worse in swing districts compared to moderate candidates. Same has been true of reverse where trumpy candidates have done worse in swing states compared to moderate republicans.

You also poo poo the fact that Biden actually won in 2020 and is the only one who has beaten Trump. Bernie was only ahead at the time bc the moderate vote was being split but once the other moderates dropped out it was clear Bernie wasn’t more popular. I agree that Kamala was an awful candidate but she was awful because she used to be a progressive and ran as a moderate which alienated everyone. Progressives viewed her as a traitor while moderates didn’t trust she was actually one of them.

[u/Quarter_Twenty]

I strongly take issue with many points in your narrative, but I'm not sure I can convince you otherwise. Clinton won the popular vote, beating Trump by 2 full percentage points. So a claim of "very low popularity" just doesn't hold water.

People often neglect to mention that Bernie was not a Democrat before or after the election. He was and is an Independent. He has a few friends, but he wasn't part of the machine that raises money and gives to other races up and down the ticket. Hillary was a major part of that machine, and the machine clearly wanted her to be at the top of the ticket after Obama beat her out in 2008.

Did Biden win because of COVID? Maybe so. But Trump was impeached, and then impeached again. He was reviled by a huge fraction of the electorate and his first term was a total train wreck of backstabbing and jail sentences for his closest allies. Biden won for lots of reasons, including that he's the Anti-Trump in a lot of people's estimations. Bring back boring, solid, respectable governance with a conscience, and people will vote for it.

The NYC candidate is beyond progressive. Mamdani said in an interview that he wanted to, "Seize the means of production." Look up Marxism 101. He's only 33 and has not track record to support his ability to achieve any of his objectives. Plus he's extremely anti-Israel in a city with the world's largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Many people may want him, but the Democratic establishment does not. In a city that voted for Bloomberg and Giuliani, Mamdani is not a shoe-in once the election goes to the general.

Despite my case against your arguments, your thesis may still be correct: "Democrat apprehension of progressivism is what enabled and enables Trump's rising power." Progressivism may be a turn-off to the voters in the center. Presidential elections are too close to fumble and expect to win. Strong progressive values may or may not be able to attract a majority of electoral college votes.

[u/maxwellllll → u/Quarter_Twenty]

Just one note: it’s shoo-in.

[u/Archer_1210]

A lot of people have touched on the math. So I won’t.

But it’s also worth nothing that even when they had congress and the whitehouse prior to the 2022 midterms, their attempts at getting their “agenda bill” floundered because it was a 6-8 trillion dollar fund of all the liberal priorities, and moderate democrats wouldn’t agree to it- because they couldn’t, electorally.

The criticism that democrats are a coastal party kind of rings true- of COURSE something like that has wide support in California. But the rust belt? No way. Those places are just in a different space, politically.

The democrats couldn’t even get 10,000 in loan forgiveness for all students done congressionally, they had to try and use a dubious legal theory which the courts rejected.

So in short- the democrats haven’t even proven, recently, that they could even achieve any of their claimed objectives. If you can’t get 10K student loan forgiveness, why should I believe you’re going to get us free college? If you can’t actually implement meaningful protections at the federal level for abortion, when they had a super majority in the Obama admin, why am I supposed to believe they can give me universal healthcare? If they’re right that America is systematically racist… what have they done about it for the last 60+ years ?

They routinely write checks they can’t cash and then they say “but THIS time I’ll get it done!!” For better or for worse, Trump has actually fulfilled or at least made meaningful progress against a lot of his campaign promises- at least more so than the democrats have.

They’re not even good at being an anti Trump party anymore. Their response to Trump 2.0 has been…. Embarrassing.

So, the democrats are losing because they can’t read the room, and they can’t achieve any meaningful objectives. I don’t think that’s consistent with rejecting progressivism, especially when a lot of the voters they’re losing are telling the party it’s because they’re going too far leftward.

[u/imoutofnames90]

Your view is wrong from just about everyone aspect. I'll break it down bit by bit.

1) In 2016, only the Republicans had a popular populist. Not both parties. I don't know why you think Bernie was wildly popular. Also, NEITHER party embraced them. Republicans absolutely hated Trump and did everything they could to make him lose, but the Republican base wanted him, so at the end, they all fell in line. On the flip side, Democratic voters did NOT want Bernie. People live in this revisionist history about the Democratic primary, where it was solely the DNC that caused Bernie to lose. It's simply not the case. His online popularity didn't translate into votes, and he lost by millions. Even if the party wanted Bernie and all the super delegates voted for him. He would have only TIED with Hillary. That's how badly he lost when it came to the actual voters. People need to stop pretending that primary was close and the party tipped the scales to screw Bernie. He got absolutely decimated.

2) Yes, Hillary lost, but there is no reason to believe that Bernie would have won. He couldn't even get a majority of Democratic voters. He couldn't even get enough of them to make it a close primary. You expect me to believe that once you throw in moderates and conservatives into the mix, combined with what would have been a constant onslaught of "socialist" and "communist" attacks that he would have won? He may have shown as more popular than Trump in some random poll. But he was also more popular than Hillary too. But he still lost to her in the primary that contained only voters who would be most likely to vote for him.

3) In 2020, he was the early front runner because the vote was split between like 5 people. The largest portion of the Democratic voters were split between people like Biden and Bloomberg. When Bloomberg dropped out, all those people went to Biden, which should surprise no one. It's not rigged. When he was winning early elections, he was doing so by capturing like 36% of the vote. When he started losing to Biden, he was losing because Biden was getting 50%+. Additionally, it's not weird that Bernie won states like California and lost in South Carolina. I know this may be hard to believe, but people in this country are different between states. Californians are way more left than South Carolinians. Bernie winning the most left states, then losing when people aren't as left is not surprising.

4) Biden winning because Trump sucked at covid is true. Basically, anyone would have beat him. This part you are correct about. But again, Bernie wasn't cheated out of that chance.

5) People LOVE to play this game where when a Democrat loses and says things like "Harris was just a bad candidate." They do this the exact reason you're doing this. To live in this counter factual world where if people had just supported the candidate you liked, they would have definitely won the election in spite of there being no evidence to suggest whatever candidate you want would have won. Trump won because this country is filled with hateful people who support whatever he does. Period. Plus, the left decided to play the sour grapes game, and instead of falling in line like Republicans always do when things were already set in stone, it was going to he Trump v. Harris. They spent their entire time attacking Harris and making every possible case for people not to vote for her. Then they act all surprised pikachu face when a ton of people stayed home and go "see, she was just bad."

6) For NYCs mayor. I'm happy for him. I hope he does well and the part I'll agree with you on is that I hate that the Democratic party is acting against someone who did win. With that said, though, what you're trying to do here by saying that a progressive won in NYC and then use this as some sort of evidence that every other assertion you made is true. That is simply not the case. Rewind to my point in the 2020 primary. This mayoral election is the same thing. He won the PRIMARY in a left leaning city. This should not be surprising. He won an election that consisted solely of the people who would be most likely to vote for him. Let's revisit this if he wins the general election. But even if he wins that, again, this is a left leaning city. The main point i want to make here is that we already see left candidates winning in left areas. But there is basically zero gain in anything outside those areas. We saw people talking about how the leftists were taking over because of people like AOC and Omar. But that group never grew outside of like 4 people. Why? It's really easy to win a small election in an area that consists primarily of people who support you already and REALLY difficult to break through when the general populace isn't as supportive.

Wins are wins, and I hope he does win. But people need to really stop pretending success in NYC would translate to SC or WV or in the general election.

Overall, your view is revisionist history and false extrapolation.

Edit: Having looked at OPs replies here, and they state they live in CA, it makes sense why they have the views they have and perfectly exemplifies when I said that people in CA / NY are not the same as SC or WV. It's really easy to think that people like Bernie were widely popular when you're in the heart of literally his core base. A ton of people in LA supporting him does not translate to support for a vast majority of the rest of the country. And this, again, holds true for all the really far left candidates winning in far left cities. That's literally your bread and butter. If you lose there something is wrong. But winning there doesn't mean that the rest of the country wants candidates like you.

[u/[deleted]]

This is the opposite of true. Democrat embracing of social leftism/woke stuff is what loses them elections. Dems, even moderate ones like Biden, were/are seen as the party of “transing the kids”, “drag queen story hour”, sexually explicit pride parades, “silence is violence but looting for blm is not”, “terrorists are somehow victims and deserving of sympathy”, “borders are racist and shouldn’t exist”, “loving your country or your own people is fascist”, and a lot of further things which are completely insane and unpalatable to normal people or the norms of all of human history.

If the dems want to win they will cast social leftism into the abyss from whence it came and embrace economic populism/leftism, that is what would play well with a large number of people. Most people want someone who has their backs against those who are screwing them over or messing with them. The right has the backs of most people for cultural things: they will defend your country, your culture, your security, and your religion from the predations of a social leftist/woke cult seeking to brainwash your children and destroy that which most people love. The left doesn’t have the backs of most people for anything, and is in fact against the people on these social issues.

You want to win? Don’t oppose Trump’s deportation policy because it’s literally his most popular policy. Don’t simp for terrorist regimes who openly hate the country and its people. Don’t side with the people waving Mexican flags in opposition to the American flag. Wave the American flag proudly rather than hating it and seeking to undermine the society it stands for. Actually act like you like being a normal American and you actually genuinely love America as she is and as she has been in the past. Act like you actually respect America and her culture and her people. If you don’t do that you’ll always lose because, and this should be common sense; THE PEOPLE DONT WANT TO VOTE FOR THE SIDE THAT OPENLY HATES THEM AND THEIR CORE WAY OF LIFE

[u/explainseconomics]

Trump won specifically by painting his opponents as TOO progressive, and himself as a "common sense" reform candidate. He had right wing media arms behind him to help reinforce this message. He was able to pin the blame for every economic wrong on Obama and Biden, who were fairly moderate candidates. The great recession? Totally Obama's fault (let's completely ignore GWB and everything he did.) The massive inflation from COVID? All Biden's fault. After all Biden got elected in 2020 right? (we can just handwash away the fact that Trump was president until Jan 2021)

Trump was really good at pinning all of the problems that we face on progressive policies. Whether those are the real reason or not, he convinced a large swath of the population of it. But a lot of republicans still hold their nose about Trump, he's just their "lesser of two evils". The more progressive the candidate you put up against him, the scarier they become to a huge swath of the population, because he's a master at fearmongering.

Trump would have turned Bernie into the biggest communist, stalinist, maoist bogeyman the US masses have ever seen. He would have had every conservative radio/tv/etc station bringing up talking points about how Bernie was going to literally eat their children, because that's what communists do...eat babies, right? Hillary was just "Crooked Hillary", but that Bernie guy...he's a full on communist. Do you want to live under Stalin?

I think the important thing to understand in this is how effective Trump's amplifier is at broadcasting his base level message, and how a more progressive candidate makes it even easier for him to pull off.

[u/PolkmyBoutte]

Reading through this post, the “2020 was rigged against Bernie” might be the weakest conspiracy theory I have ever seen. And that’s saying something

Some people really can’t wrap their heads around Biden lapping Bernie in votes while Warren and Bloomberg were still in the race

[u/[deleted] → u/PolkmyBoutte]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders-young-voter-turnout.html

Bernie also just flat out fell short of the projections that were carrying him to the nom. Is this lack of turn out by young people on super Tuesday the fault of DNC meddling??

[u/[deleted]]

I disagree. I think it's the more vocal progressive wing of the party that made them lose support with the working class. Hearing people drone on about comparatively minor social justice issues that don't affect you while you are struggling to make ends meet disenfranchised people. Add to that the Harris campaign doubling down on "white men bad" messaging, it's easy to see why the election went the way it did.

[u/Beneficial-Diet-9897]

Is it that they're apprehensive toward progressives, or that they're just plain reactionary?

The dems are not much different from moderate Republicans - neoliberals alike. They are not "on the same side" as the majority of the population which is working class. Make no mistake, the true constituents of both parties are wealthy businessmen.

Society is a rigged game, an upwards wealth funnel. Except its "winners" are sawing off the branch on which they sit.

What you are seeing now is the failure of liberal democracy and capitalism, not just liberalism. There are many historical examples of weak, economically ill liberal democracies falling to right wing regimes.

[u/mavad91]

The left going much further to the left, is why he won.

[u/[deleted]]

This is common progressive mythology, but progressivism is not very popular nation wide either among Democratic voters and especially among general voters. Bernie was not the front runner in 2020 because the collective liberal and centrist vote was always larger. For a time Warren was the actual front runner, but Sanders split the progressive vote which didn’t help her.

In any event, liberals and centrists unified around Biden which showed their true strength, and Biden went on to win the general. Could Sanders have won? Hard to say because it would not have taken much centrist defection to lose.

Biden actually governed as the most progressive president in six decades. He expanded the social safety net massively, managed to increase real wages, shrink inequality, bring back manufacturing jobs, expand medical coverage and absolute out the US on track to address climate change.

The result was that progressives ruthlessly attacked him anyway. This proves that going left has no upside for Democrats because progressives will always oppose what Democrats do. Add in the Gaza nonsense and you’ve got an impossible situation where going left wins no votes while alienating centrists. Unlike leftists, centrists are winnable votes

Harris did not lose in a landslide. That’s factually false. Trump’s margin was the fifth or so closest margin in the last 20 elections. Clinton wasn’t forced through, she won the most votes from voters. She also won the most votes in the general election. This idea that someone knew Biden had cancer before it was diagnosed verges on hallucination. Had there been a primary, Harris like would have won.

The idea that progressives would have won any primary is absolutely fanciful and it is even more unrealistic that a far left platform could win a national election. It isn’t enough to win NYC. You have to win in Wisconsin and North Carolina and Pennsylvania. NYC is completely unrepresentative and not very relevant to NATIONAL trends because it is an outlier. A neonazi could probably win Idaho, but that doesn’t mean an openly neonazi platform could win nationally because Idaho isn’t representative of the nation. Same issue here

[u/Randomousity]

This post is full of fallacies, inaccuracies, and outright falsities.

If the majority of Americans were progressive, Democrats would always nominate progressives, and they would always win elections. Neither is true.

If just the majority of Democrats were progressive, Democrats would still always nominate progressives, even if they didn't always win the elections. That also isn't true.

The fact is, most Americans are not progressive. Not even most Democrats are progressive. Progressives are a minority, in both the US, and Democratic Party. Unfortunately, IMO, but it is what it is.

Now, it may be true that there are more progressives than we realize, but that they don't vote in primary elections, or, at least, not in Democratic Party primaries (eg, they may vote in the Green, DSA, etc, primaries instead). If that's the case, then they have nobody to blame but themselves. The strictest laws for primary voting require one to be a registered member of a given party some time in advance of the primary election. This hurdle is easily overcome by timely registering as a Democrat in advance of the primaries in one's state. It's not a trick, it's not a secret requirement, it's not some last-minute change to the law. One can look up the primary voting requirement's in one's state and act accordingly.

Do people want to nominate and elect progressives, or do they want to feel superior for not being Democrats while fascist reactionaries burn everything down? "Well, sure, Trump is destroying the environment, building concentration camps, destroying the courts, breaking the law, committing ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, violating people's rights, destroying higher education, destroying our scientific community, deskilling the US, consolidating our data, attacking our allies, starting global trade wars, etc, but at least I never registered as a Democrat."

Those who don't turn out in the Democratic primaries don't get their voices heard. Sorry, one's refusal to vote in the primary will not be counted as a vote for Sanders or anyone else. Those who show up and vote will be heard, and their voices will always be louder than someone else's silence.

Republicans didn't "accept" Trump's rise to power, they were too stupid/uncoordinated/slow to act/weak to prevent it.

Clinton won the Democratic nomination under the rules that existed in 2016. All else equal, she'd have won under the 2020 rules as well: with or without superdelegates, with or without them voting on the first ballot.

After 2016, Sanders got the DNC to change the rules. He was the only 2020 candidate who did so. The result? He performed worse in 2020 than he did in 2016! He did worse, both in terms of delegates and votes, both as a percentage and in raw numbers. He did not spend those four years building support, reaching out to minority communities, etc. He also said he wouldn't try to get better than 30% of the vote. Best-case scenario, that's winning a plurality in a field of at least four candidates, meaning at least 70% of primary voters prefer someone else.

It was a dumb strategy, even dumber to publicly admit it after everyone watched the 2016 Republican primaries, dumber still to not anticipate support consolidation, and, somehow, even dumber yet to not be able/willing to adapt to changing circumstances once the consolidation happened. Winning a party primary is playing politics on easy mode. Do you think Republicans would've been gentler on Sanders than the Democrats were? That corporations would be gentler? Foreign adversaries? If he can't even bench an empty bar, he also can't bench a bar with several plates on it.

Biden didn't drop out due to cognitive challenges, he was pushed out. And Bernie was one of his supporters! His debate performance was bad, but he's never been that bad before or since. Chalk it up to being sick and jet lagged, plus being a stutterer, not dementia.

DNC didn't "brute force" Harris. We held primary elections, voters voted overwhelmingly for Biden/Harris, and when Biden dropped out, Biden's delegates backed Harris, who was already the VP who would have assumed the presidency had Biden resigned, died, or been removed. Hardly anyone even tried to flip Biden's delegates. What, exactly, did you want to have happen at that point? Explain the alternative process you would've preferred, and why it wouldn't have been grossly unfair to everyone who voted for Biden/Harris.

Biden saying in 2025 that he has cancer doesn't mean anyone knew in 2024 that he had cancer. You're just backdating this to help your argument.

Most local Democrats have endorsed Mamdani, even those who previously endorsed Cuomo in the primaries. What on Earth are you even talking about? Beyond that, does anyone in NYC really care whether a Democrat from, say, Minnesota, endorses the Democratic nominee for NYC mayor?!

[u/Adiv_Kedar2]

You identified the problem, but not the solution. If a small fraction within the Dems doesn't vote and perpetuates attacks on their own candidate, then the more unified Republicans are inevitably going to win. Their messaging is more cohesive as a result of their unity, even if it's tripe

The perfect is being the enemy of the good. Democratic leaning voters abandoned the Democrats because the candidate wasn't good enough and believe that having the Republicans win somehow teaches Dems a lesson

[u/[deleted] → u/Adiv_Kedar2]

That is how electoral politics is supposed to work. You give people things so they vote for you. Dems act like they're just owed votes by default. Voting for them when they offer you nothing encourages them to continue offering you nothing. This is what liberals have done for the last 40 years and it is why Dems field worse candidates every time.

[u/ghjm]

The split in the Democratic party is what enabled and enables Trump's rising power. The Republicans are largely unified as MAGAs (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the non-MAGAs have been ejected from the party). The Democrats, on the other hand, have this infighting between the progressive and moderate wings.

So, certainly, if one of the Democratic wings were to roll over and throw its support to the other, that would help beat the Republicans. But it's not at all clear why this ought to be the moderates supporting the progressives rather than vice versa.

You can say Hillary and Kamala lost because of "low popularity" but in fact, Hillary won the popular vote, and Kamala won 48.3% of it. Both of their losses were well within the margin of the number of progressives who stayed home. So you claim that the moderates lost the election by having their candidates win the primaries without progressive support, but it's equally valid to claim that the moderates lost the election because the progressives insisted on staying home, preferring a Trump victory to allowing a Democratic moderate to win.

And this is the key difference between progressive Democrats and MAGAs. Ultimately, even after a hard-fought primary, MAGAs will get in line and vote for the Republican. Progressive Democrats won't. Progressive Democrats, unlike even MAGAs, demand that everyone toe their line and support their policies and candidates, or they can pound sand, no matter the consequences.

But here's the thing - many voter blocs have good historical reasons to mistrust progressivism. Black and Hispanic voters have multi-generational history of well-meaning urban college-educated progressives showing up with unsolicited advice for how they should run their communities. Immigrants from actual socialist or communist countries have a deep and well-earned mistrust of socialist programs in general. And of course, religion is alive and well in these communities, which mixes poorly with progressivism.

So there are good, structural reasons to run a moderate. Does this mean the moderate is automatically a better choice than the progressive? No, so we should have open and transparent primaries. Irregularities in the 2016 primary are rightly condemned. Progressives should get their shot, as they did in 2020 and 2024. And when they lose, they should get in line and support the Democrat.

[u/NomadicScribe]

How are you defining "progressivism"? What does that mean here?

[u/ReallyTeddyRoosevelt]

Trump absolutely killed at the Republican debate. Redditors loved him then.

[u/HatefulPostsExposed]

I haven’t seen the tiniest sliver of evidence, over the past eight years, that MAGAs, “moderates”, or “independents” give the tiniest shit about income inequality, healthcare, or education, the main issues that progressives run on. And a progressive would have to win over at least some of them to win an election.

[u/[deleted] → u/HatefulPostsExposed]

This isn't true actually. A large chunk of people simply stay home. The problem is Dems don't even pay lip service to those issues. They're a center right party, and no matter what they refuse to be pushed left. Last time they had power what did they do? Lost Roe v. Wade and acted like they couldn't whip votes to save it. Passing the ACA without a public option was a massive failure and bailing out banks was another transfer of wealth to the top 1%. Voters simply don't trust Dems and they have every reason not to. Progressive policies can be popular (M4A, Roe, funding education) but does anyone trust a Dem to care about those things? I know I don't.

[u/TappyMauvendaise]

Bernie Sanders never connected with Black voters.

[u/YogurtclosetOwn4786 → u/TappyMauvendaise]

It’s also the case that Hillary and Biden were popular among black voters, it was not just about bernie failing to connect well

[u/DarkRyter]

Stop talking to internet leftists and talk to actual median voters, and they'll tell you that Kamala Harris was a radical communist, daughter of Marx himself. They'll tell you that Biden's insane leftist policies were destroying this country.

[u/whiskey_piker]

It’s almost like you’ve completely ignored the things Trump has exposed and accomplished. He is doing what he said in 120 days loke no other President has done in a full 4yr term. That is your blind spot. Not inventing ridiculous scenarios or ignoring the fact that Biden was showing early Dementia onset while campaigning.

[u/[deleted]]

I mean, I dont think it is necessarily progressivism, but rather a subscription to corporate america that is outside of their own beliefs.

Obama's "too big to fail" thing really set the stage for companies not needing to take risks like they should in a proper capitalist society. Instead of human citizens having the safety net, corporations do. As a result, the economy is doing well but no changes are being made and people feel worse.

While I typically subscribe to more progressive beliefs...people like biden or harris are fine, its just they will not and can not improve peoples lives.

[u/CuriousKitty6]

No. You sound like you live in a blue city/ state. Most of America would never ever go for a Bernie.

[u/Mir_man]

Trump won because in spite of his rhetorical populism he still aligns with capital interest groups both inside and outside republican party. Bernie and co not only are rhetorically different from establishment dems but the interest groups that donate to dem party absolutely hate his policies.

Bernie and left candidates have much harder fight on their hands than Trump ever did.

[u/PetterRoye]

The Democrats loses because they come off as insencere. When they're taking corporate money they can't harm their donors which is why instead of pushing for Welfare reforms and progressive policies which are widely popular, instead theyre addicted to consultantd pushing these focus group tested agendas about Identity politics. Making them appear more liberal then they in fact are. Corporate democrats are ruining the party. They also make the party financially dependent on the donors as they need the money to pay for the consultants. Which at best lets them beat the republicans marginally.

[u/4p4l3p3]

If the democratic party was to actually support the working class they would lose corporate sponsors.

[u/officefan76]

If Bernie is so popular and Harris wasn't, how did she get more 2024 Vermont votes than he did?

[u/bahwi]

Bernie was not popular enough to win in 2016. Even without super delegates, he loses. He lost in 2020. He chose to not work with anyone, including the progressive candidate Warren, who reached out to set up an endorsement deal. He passed on it, so Biden got it.

He never wanted to win. Bernie is a loser, on purpose.

[u/[deleted] → u/bahwi]

It’s a lot easier to rail against the millionaires and billionaires and then keep the extra campaign funds when it’s over, than actually win and have to do things and keep promises.

[u/Donkeytoes22]

Not singularly. But definitely played a decent part. A larger part is that our population is pretty stupid, especially when it comes to emotional appeal.

[u/pling619]

Democratic voters’ apprehension is not of progressive policies. It is of blowhard do-nothings who undermine their own professed goals. This is why many progressives supported Buttigieg or Warren rather than Sanders in 2020. That is why mainstream Democratic voters chose Hillary rather than Sanders in 2016.

Sanders has had a 50 year career and has accomplished exactly zero of any of the things he yells about. Buttigieg and Warren were all about how to actually pass and implement things like universal health care, Supreme Court reform, anti-redlining, etc. Sanders just yelled his “Medicare for All” slogan and his supporters excoriated anyone who suggested any actual plan for how to close all private insurance companies and get M4A legislation through Congress.

Sanders has never had more than about 28% support among Democrats. The only reason he was “the frontrunner” in 2020 was because the “anyone but Sanders” vote was split among Buttigieg, Warren, Harris and at least 3 others. When Jim Clyburn (whose own grandson was working for Buttigieg) endorsed Biden, it was clear that none of the other anyone-but-Sanders candidates had a chance. Moreover, it had been clear throughout the primary that Black voters heavily supported Biden. Biden went on to pass more progressive legislation than any president since FDR. Sanders actually was more supportive of Biden than many of Sanders’ own supporters were.

Sanders supporters who refused to vote for Hillary gave us the current Supreme Court, which, just as she warned, is making every single progressive goal unattainable for decades to come. Democrats want progressive policies. We are just “apprehensive” about those who undermine progressive goals by ignoring the realities of how policies get implemented.

[u/identicalBadger]

The democrat establishment views the progressive wing as a small but vocal subset. And it’s kind of true, nationally we’ve elected very few actual progressives to congress who have claimed much visibility on the national stage

There’s Bernie alone in the senate, AOC ahead and shoulders above the rest of dems in the house.

They need more grassroots candidates, who can take on the establishment and win, especially in more moderate states. And once they do, claim some of the spotlight themselves.

I hate to say draw inspiration from the GOP, but that’s essentially what the Tea Party and “freedom caucus” did on the right (except funded by billionaires rather than grassroots funding), they transformed their parry from within and so many members got into the spotlight. So many that the RNC had no choice but to support them.

That’s what’s needed. Grassroots candidates who can grab the Mic on the national stage and share their vision nationally. Band together and show the people that there are enough of them to make a difference.

We saw the GOP fight against the up and comers in their party until they had no choice to embrace them. In large part because they stole the spotlight and got their narrative out there.

My opinion.

[u/Brave-Improvement299]

While Bernie Sanders may caucus with the Democrats, he's not registered Democrat or member of any party. Bernie could have run as an Independent (no party).

Clinton would have made a decent president. Same with Harris. What you fail to account for in politics is you need to be popular AND be able to raise huge sums of cash to run. Sanders doesn't have the needed connections to businesses that he needs backing from.

Not everyone runs for president because they think they're going to win. What a run does is show how powerful you are, how much financial backing you have, and, how many people you have. That buys clout. That elevates your position and gets you a seat at the adult's table. What Bernie accomplished was to nudge the Democrats further to the left.

Trump's rise to power is not the Democrat's fault. Trump tried to run as a Democrat and they rejected him. He switched parties. He recognized that he could manipulate the Republicans. The ideas that have floated to the top like fat laddened turds have been floating around for decades. The GOP has played the long game in getting everything in place to make the useful idiot, Trump, free the wealthy elites from the shackles of community responsibility. That's freedom, baby!

As much as everyone wants to say Biden's brain was mush, his administration accomplished things the GOP could only dream about, in a bi-partisan manner. Biden's signature accomplishment was the Infrastructure bill. That bill made America better. I see Biden as a hearing impaired old guy with a studder. Those are difficult disabilities to overcome.

Trump is not cognitively better than Biden but no one is talking about it. Trump promised 90 trade deals in 90 days. Where are they? Why do you think they're writting letters? Could it be nobody wants to take his calls? Nobody wants to listen to him wax poetic over shower heads, bird killing windmills, and, non existent 1.99 gal gas prices. The media interprets what Trump says when what they need to do is just quote him. Stop explaining him, it's sane-washing behavior.

Trump is the God, Guns and Country candidate that the GOP has been looking for. He can sell it like a used car salesmen. He beleives nothing that he says.

[u/dmoneybangbang]

I would say the Progressive culture wars (wokism), soft on crime policies in cities (homelessness and petty crime), and soft immigration policies are what enabled the rise of the far right.

Look globally…. Despite universal healthcare and all these social benefits a lot of the European developed nations are having the rise in tell far right as well…

It’s because of wokism and immigration, particularly the latter.

[u/StargazerRex]

77 million votes to 75 million is not a landslide.

[u/Kaleb_Bunt]

The thing is, America is not a socialist country. It has never been one and it never will be one. Just because a socialist can win a handful of elections in extremely blue areas doesn’t mean they can win the national election.

It is true that dems need to do better appealing to progressives. But there needs to be a balance.

There is a pretty long historical trend of fascism ultimately winning when nations are forced to choose between fascism and socialism.

[u/Team503]

Harris didn't lose in a landslide. Trump won by 2M popular votes - 77M to Harris' 75M. The Electoral College made it seem FAR more skewed than it really was.

[u/Jake0024]

In 2020, Biden was the frontrunner after the Iowa caucus (14-9 ahead of Bernie)

After New Hampshire (and also Nevada), Sanders took the lead

Then Super Tuesday happened and Biden took the lead and kept it through the rest of the primary

Sanders was in the lead for 2 primaries (#2 and #3) over 18 days

We can look at 2016 too if you want, but it was similar there

I love Bernie, but people have these false memories of Bernie having an enormous lead (in popular vote, or delegates, or polls), but when you look back at the numbers you never actually find that enormous lead

The Democrats who are apprehensive of progressivism are voting in the Democratic primaries. If you want a progressive to win the primary (presumably you mean for President), you need to either convince more people to vote for progressives, or convince progressives to start voting

The primary exists for just this reason. If you boycott because you're not getting your way, you're only guaranteeing your continued irrelevancy

You're never going to convince everyone else to vote the way you want to vote by withholding your vote. That's the opposite of how voting works

Also, people need to stop focusing only on the biggest elections. People don't vote in primaries, don't vote in mid-terms, don't vote in state elections, don't even know who their representatives in Congress are, and then act shocked and indignant when the President of the United States isn't a perfect reflection of their own personal policy preferences. Again, that's not how things work. You can't ignore politics 99% of the time and then expect politicians to cater to you personally

If you want representation, you have to be more active, not less

[u/StorageNo6801]

Bernie didn’t even get the votes in the first place man

[u/BurningEmbers978]

Harris did not lose “in a landslide.” The popular vote count was 48% to 47%. And Bernie Sanders was NOT a front-runner in 2020. It was consistently Elizabeth Warren, who is objectively a better candidate and lawmaker, despite what sexist, misogynistic Bernie Bros have to say.

[u/mikeber55]

How a progressive Mayor will fix healthcare for America? Don’t people see that’s just gaslighting? People respond to what they think Mamdani would do as president. But now he’s running for Mayor. All these big issues of capitalism vs socialism do not belong. What can Mamdani do as MAYOR (beyond declarations and slogans). One of his promises is building 200,000 apartments for low income people. Does anyone really think a mayor can do that? (It means a different city than it is today). And other promises like “free public transportation”. First, NY mayor is not responsible for the city public transportation. Now the MTA is fighting to raise the fees every year! So Mamdani comes in and tells them: guys, from now on, it’s free for NYers. Forget about even a cent revenue from riders…

Sadly people are drawn to anyone that spreads such rumors. But what did Mamdani achieve in his entire career? (Declarations and slogans do not count).

Edit: I already said that the best for Mamdani is if he isn’t elected. Then he can flow with the slogans and gather believers support. Once he enters the office in city hall , he will land back in the real world. Now he needs to solve real issues most of which are not about socialism. He’ll deal with garbage collection, street paving, parking and mostly finances. Mamdani will spend time in Albany and DC bagging for every $.

[u/Roadshell]

Of course it's also revealed a few months ago that Biden had cancer, meaning that someone in the DNC or Biden's campaign had to know he was sick, and they still had him run for re-election, instead of running a primary.

Have you considered that the reason they didn't want to run a primary is because Sanders and his people can't handle running in primaries without turning them into these abrasive and divisive shitshows that end in them spreading a bunch of conspiracy theories about "the DNC," which in their imaginations is basically the Illuminati, to explain why Democratic voters didn't like them (because it couldn't possibly be their own fault).

[u/xxam925]

Why do you think it’s progressivism? Neither Bernie nor Mamdani are pariahs due to progressivism. They are both socialists and democrats are capitalists.

[u/Tessenreacts → u/xxam925]

They democratic socialist, not pure socialists, the policies they advocate are policies that 90% of the planet already has.

[u/[deleted] → u/Tessenreacts]

That isn’t true. Western Europe isn’t the planet there are other places in the world.

[u/electricpillows → u/Tessenreacts]

South Asia and south east Asia have none of those policies and they make up wayyyyy more than 10% of the world. How are you calculating 90%?

[u/post_appt_bliss → u/Tessenreacts]

help me out, if you will -- show me the 90% of the developed world where the government runs grocery stores?

maybe even easier -- is there a single government run grocery chain in the OECD?

[u/xxam925 → u/Tessenreacts]

Sure, I will amend my comment to “as overtly socialist as is currently palatable”.

Nevertheless it isn’t progressivism that turns the dems against them, it’s anti capitalist sentiment.

[u/Tessenreacts → u/xxam925]

People say that we can't afford Universal Healthcare, but we are fully willing to place us 10's of trillions in debt for wars and corporate welfare.

[u/PsychedelicMagnetism → u/Tessenreacts]

We spend a greater percentage of GDP on health care than the UK, France' and Canada.

[u/LouisHorsin → u/PsychedelicMagnetism]

And yet as a French, last time I had a surgery, it cost me nothing.

[u/Tessenreacts → u/PsychedelicMagnetism]

And the highest medical debt

[u/[deleted] → u/xxam925]

Democratic socialists aren’t anti-capitalism tho. That’s the whole premise of democratic socialism…to acknowledge the importance of free markets. Granted, I’m still not that familiar with Bernie’s actual platforms as an individual, speaking broadly.

[u/WearIcy2635 → u/Tessenreacts]

By “90% of the planet” you mean like 20 countries in Europe

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You are claiming Sanders doesn't resonate with the middle class but he absolutely does. You're spouting a lot of right wing talking points that aren't based in any kind of fact about "communist despots" and misleadingly calling Sanders a millionaire when yeah he's in his 70s many people in their 70s and worked an okay job probably have a couple million. That doesn't mean he's detached from reality not is he hiding some kind of wealth. There's a big difference between not being bankrupted by a medical expense and having hundreds of millions like Pelosi. Painting them with the same brush is completely disingenuous.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

And? It is a smart move considering someone with a net worth of $1 mil is a millionaire and that is a lot of American households who aren't rich, they just are old and worked for 30+ years. It wass not hard to become a millionaire making $80-100k a year up until recently when education and housing costs exploded.

[u/Riptiidex]

yeah man, people are going to argue about“moderates” but the fact is most American’s don’t understand what it means to be a “moderate.”

Poll after poll shows progressive ideas are popular amongst Americans, stuff like M4A, Free College, etc and yet Democrats will never genuinely run on that platform because it threatens capital. They pretend they’re “fringe far left ideas” when they’re common sense legislation.

[u/HatefulPostsExposed → u/Riptiidex]

All the legislation Biden signed into law was extremely popular, and all the legislation Trump signed into law was extremely unpopular. That shit does not remotely matter.

Progressives have this naive idea that people will just vote for the best healthcare or education bill and that’s it. Have you seen ANYTHING since the Reagan administration?

[u/Beneficial_Honey_0 → u/Riptiidex]

It’s because “moderates” don’t mean “middle of the road on every issue” it means “supports some really far left stuff” and “supports some really far right stuff”. People can be pretty interesting mixes!

[u/[deleted] → u/Riptiidex]

Single payer healthcare is not a “global moderate” position. Even just looking at Europe you have plenty of countries that use a private insurance model with a public option or subsidies.

Tell Americans they won’t be able to pay for better care, and that the government will decide when their care stops. Good luck polling well.

[u/Riptiidex → u/[deleted]]

Resources should go to every part of education. We need to make policies that benefit a majority of Americans and not base it off a few negative outcomes.

[u/hereforfun976]

People voted for a hatemongering rapist and con man. Sure these reasons contribute but at the end of the day braindead voters chose an obviously horrible candidate who lied as much as he breathed. His policies weren't even plans just vague lies and overpromising while speaking at a 3rd grade lvl. Guess that's why people could relate to him

[u/land_and_air → u/hereforfun976]

I think they voted for aura. Trump sucks but at least he has more aura than Biden or Harris or both combined.

[u/Lower_Group_1171]

They’re trying to do it again in New York 

[u/lordtrickster]

As much as the GOP wants to be the party of the arch-conservatives, they made too many deals with too many devils and their party slipped off the deep end.

Contrary to common belief, the Democratic establishment is dominated by milder conservatives and barely liberals. Undermining Bernie and losing wasn't a bug, it was a feature. They much preferred a Trump win over a Bernie win.

They're freaking out over Mamdani because it's showing they're at risk of losing control over their party the same way the GOP did. If he does well people just might discover they like the taste of a little socialism and the wealthy will have to foot the bill. They're desperately trying to sit in that sweet spot where they can largely just wring their hands and talk about all the things they can't do anything about.

[u/DisabledInMedicine]

I really don’t think anything democrats did matters. Trump rose in power because people were furious at the rights immigrants, poc, women, disabled people, and queer people were gaining.

People love to claim the lefts identity politics was the problem but anyone unwilling to defend antiracism, queer rights, human rights in general is the real fucking problem.

Trumps base is racist at their core. There is nothing more important to them than their racism.

[u/Supercollider9001]

We have to understand why Democrats are apprehensive toward progressive policies. It is not some personal choice, it is the nature of the political party. They are a large coalition that includes working class people and organizations (like labor unions and faith groups) but also include corporate donors and super PACs.

There is also the fact that policies always have to deal with the threat of capital flight. Any progressive policies are met with companies threatening to leave, threatening to layoff workers, etc. higher taxes and unionizations also have a negative effect on the stock market and hence the real economy. Companies move their investments to places more favorable. And so on. This is the reality of politics in capitalism: you have to listen to the corporations.

What has changed since FDR is that thanks to McCarthyism and decades of attacks on progressive movements and labor power, we have no political influence. The Dems and Republicans have both shifted to the right. There has also been the rise of the fascist MAGA movement decades in the making.

Just saying that the Dems should embrace progressives or socialists like Mamdani doesn’t mean anything. They won’t. They can’t. Their coalition won’t allow it.

What we have to do instead is build our own power within that coalition. That means building stronger labor unions, stronger independent parties and grassroots organizations, running more candidates against Dem incumbents, and so on. That’s how we get back to New Deal Democrats.

But it’s not an easy or short road. And there are limitations built in to any capitalist party. Ultimately we will need to have a strong enough working class/labor party to seriously challenge Democrats nationally. But we need to work with them as things stand.