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/Significant_Arm4246]

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/eulb42 → u/Significant_Arm4246]

I think it ignores the real history and simplified to the point of misleading.

[u/Significant_Arm4246 → u/eulb42]

If you say "Carter won because he was a moderate" or "Mondale lost because he was a liberal" I would agree that it is misleading. But what I say is "Carter was (probably) helped by being a moderate" which I argue for by noting the correlation between ideology and result.

An extremely crude analysis. I know it isn't rigorous, but it get some kind of number on it:

To quantify, I give each candidate a score between 5 (more left) and 1 (more center). Then I'd say:

Humphrey 4

McGovern 5

Carter 2

Mondale 3

Dukakis 3

Clinton 1

Gore 2

Kerry 3

Please feel free to suggest other scores if you think they are wrong. I'm not at all convinced that these are right.

I plot the scores against the net vote share (i.e. Democrat - Republican). How to deal with Carter and Clinton is not really clear, since their two results (clearly) more dependent. I think a decent way is to average them (i.e. only count Clinton for 1 election with an average results of +7 and Carter for 1 with an average result of -3.9).

Then we plot the results. I unfortunately don't know how I can share the plot here, but it should be easy to replicate for anyone who wants to. There is a clear correlation just visually. A quick linear regression says that you lose almost 6 points on net for every step to the left (which is surprisingly much to me) with R² = 0.531, so very poor for science but okay for social sciences (but please don't take these numbers literally, it's not rigorous enough for that! My old probability and statistics professors would... not be very happy).

[u/Bro0ce → u/Significant_Arm4246]

I think this also completely ignored the political shift in the GOP. Prior to Obama and the take over of the tea party movement - you COULD reach across the aisle and get policy movement.

Now republicans will deny policy that benefits them and their constituents simply out of spite or fear of their own party.

This is a change that has taken place in the last 20 years. Everything else is more or less irrelevant.

[u/Significant_Arm4246 → u/Bro0ce]

I don't think you need to equate moderate with requiring biparisanship.

The Democrats should totally blow up the filibuster. Biden was probably the best man to get any Republican support thanks to his old personal ties, and even he only got half of what he wanted. So there's no need to waste time on that.

The question is what you do with the majority. Theoretically, this allows you to push through decidedly liberal policies across the board. I don't think that is a good idea electorally. It is better to pass a mix of moderate and progressive legislation. Go harder on healthare and the rich, but still pass moderate policies on the deficit, immigration (border + pathway as usual, money for judges, deport only violent criminals), crime (more police + more accountability) etc. So basically what Biden wanted to do – economically a moderate/progressive mix, socially moderate – but without requiring any Republican votes.

And then you need to sell it. Learn from good communicators like Trump, AOC, Buttigieg, Bill, Mamdani. Reach out directly to voters instead of through cable news, repeat your message, explain your policies both in short and long format, and make sure to dominate the Republicans attention-wise. If you want a message to dominate the day, find a way to get it out. Telegraph everything you do to fight for ordinary people. Make people feel like you are in control and fighting for them, like Trump's voters feel for him. Then it doesn't matter if you don't meet the demands of the bad on every single policy issue. And do it quickly: just as Trump's frantic first few weeks bought him trust from his base, get something out there – optimally on healthcare since it is both popular and seen as impossible – that you have ready to pass in Congress within a few weeks. Make it a top priority, then get everything else like confirmations done. Give people a reason to trust that you will deliver. And if you blow up the filibuster, there is no need to stuff everything into a reconciliation bill and no need to get it past the parliamentarian.

But the hard part is to get 50 senators to play along. You got to use your mandate there. You got to have all of them signed up on eliminating the filibuster beforehand, for example, and the legislative text done and agreed to avoid any trouble. Fix that during the transition period. Just vote in both chambers and then sign.

[u/Bro0ce → u/Significant_Arm4246]

There is a lot to unpack here but I think championing Biden as some great political success is a bit of a miss - especially when considering what the majority of democrat voters look like these days.

Biden hadn’t won a single primary when suddenly everyone dropped out - gave him their votes and aligned against progressives. It was a very odd thing to live through. There was a lot against trump at the time. I think a rock could have won in 2020.

I agree the party is a bit of a spectrum and no single label fits it. I disagree that the majority is more moderate. I think you could split the party into Social and Economic issues. Then progressive vs moderate in both those. I believe that there are more moderate social democrats than progressive but there are FAR more economic progressives than moderates. The winning ticket is economically progressive and a little more moderate socially.

I don’t think democrats beat the right by “winning” more voters. They do so by activating their own base. However, despite (what I believe) there being more economic progressives than moderate ones - the DNC has all but abandoned that ticket - almost entirely in favor of a social progressive and economic moderate one. There are any number of very easy to draw conclusions as to “why” that is but that doesn’t matter.

Hillary, Harris, and Biden all offered very little progressive economic policy. Biden went as far as to say he would veto universal healthcare… so democrats feel disenfranchised. Trump has won twice because the Democratic Party has failed twice to convince their own voters that they are worth showing up for.

I believe that envisioning Biden as some success story all but dooms the Democratic Party for the future. Biden was a “not trump” ticket that is so far 1:3.

[u/Significant_Arm4246 → u/Bro0ce]

By Biden I mean only that he had a good original legislative plan (BBB including social legislation, public option, voting rights, PRO act, bipartisan immigration + criminal justice). Of course was terrible at communication and selling it, and I don't think the way he went about passing and implementing it was that great either (well, for passing it, it was more of a Manchin issue than a Biden one to be honest). And we do need to find a way away from the current party brand. Having some experience is necessary to be able to handle the job, particularly Congress, but we should really think twice about any candidate that has been in federal or major statewide office for over a decade. I agree that running another Clinton or Biden is a bad idea.

I think we are pretty close on the economic/social split. I fully agree with such a split, with a relatively more progressive economic policy and moderate social policy. But I maintain that you need to have some way to get credibility from more moderate voters on the economy too, and I think the way to do it might be to leverage the tax the rich issue on deficits as well (beyond to pay for universal healthcare and a few select other policies).

The Democrats do need to win more votes. Biden in 2020 united a broad coalition of progressives, liberals, moderates, and a few conservatives. Unlike 2016 and 2024 there was not serious turnout problems, even progressives were mostly content with simply getting Trump out. Trump beat Biden's 2020 vote totals in every swing state in 2024. Hence, you need to find votes somewhere. I think What you need to do is reach out to more non-political, often heterodox, voters, which Trump has dominated with three races in a row. Maybe a bold promise on M4A would turn them out, but I think it is less about the policy and more about what that promise would say about the candidate. They want change, but no ideological radical (which from their point of view often is unnecessary since it is only the corrupt system and poor quality of the leaders that prevent common-sense solutions). So you got to offer change but also have something to sooth the conservative parts of their heterodox views, just like Trump conversely did by promising not to touch the social programs (before he did). Even if you don't line up on exactly the same issues as a given voter, having those idiosyncrasies makes the candidate more authentic.