Summary
Historians suggest Democrats might have fared better against Donald Trump by embracing the economic issues championed by Senator Bernie Sanders, who has long pushed for a focus on “bread-and-butter” concerns for working-class voters.
Despite Kamala Harris’s progressive policies, polls showed Trump was favored on economic issues, particularly among working-class and Hispanic voters.
Historian Leah Wright Rigueur argued that Sanders’ messaging on economic struggles could be key for future Democratic strategies.
Sanders himself criticized the party for “abandoning” the working class, which he said has led to a loss of support across racial lines.
It seems to me that a lot of people are confused about what “supporting the working class” would actually mean.
It wouldn’t mean that the working class would start thinking like Democrats. It will mean that Democrats will start thinking like the working class. Think about the implications, they’re not all what you want them to be.
Probably worth it, though.
Like the other out-of-touch libs, when you say ‘working class’ what you mean is ‘racist white rural people’.
Half my coworkers were either born outside the US or are second-gen. My national just voted to affirm and support trans rights. Turns out, people who work for money are working class. That includes, well, everybody.
This misunderstanding is why the Dems ‘moved to the right’ this election. They still think it’s 1950. Moving to the right doesn’t make you appealing to the working class, it makes you appealing to bigots.
Literally just make life easier for the working poor. That is all you need to do.
The implications, like supporting a higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, labor protections, unionization, and ending the forever wars?
Not sure about how they think about universal healthcare and unionization. It’s hard to believe those are core issue for them if they’re willing to vote republican like this.
And I can add to that list not caring about immigrants or minorities more than the bare minimum. Or about helping students financially.
Why should I give a fuck about immigrants who directly drive down my wages? I’m talking legal immigrants. I work for a ski area - they can’t function without J1s and H2Bs or they’d have to pay double the wages for it to make sense for American citizens. I’m in a well tipped position so it doesn’t matter for me but my non tipped coworkers can barely make rent, meanwhile as a condition of employment J1s and H2Bs have to be provided housing (that they pay $500 a month for deducted in their paychecks) by the resort.
Please note how minorities abandoned the democrats because democrats abandoned them.
I’m not saying I disagree with that position. I’m saying that Democrats mostly disagree with that position.
Except they don’t or trump wouldn’t of won.
What are the implications?
The workers of America need to abandon the Democrat party and establish a unified left wing party (a good name would be “American workers party”, yes I know that existed before). A few basic details of this party should include:
- Primary focus on economic issues
- The abolition of Capitalism
- The establishment of worker ran co-ops (aka Syndicates)
- Minimal government
- Less taxes
- Social Programs ran by Syndicates
- The Abolition of Military (with a small reserve)
- A fundamental restructuring of policing (with the door open to police abolition)
- US-First policy, yes it means abandoning its “allies” but America needs to understand that it cannot be the world police forever.
- And Education reform to ensure that the American people will never end up in this situation again
I wish you the very best of luck. The main issues you’ll have will be, in order: funding, funding and funding.
Anyone being serious about this will have to spend most of their time thinking about that. Its why they always, eventually, end up being g captured by the powers that be. But they can do a lot of good before then, in the right circumstances.
One solution is through part of the party being a sort of union of trade unions. Unions have money, similar values and members who would potentially join. Membership subs would be another. They can do an awful lot of good but unions can also come with their own long list of problems you’ll have to keep your eye on.
Whatever name you choose, check out the formation of political labour movements, as a kind of road map to building what you want. An example would be the labour party in the UK or NZ. It’ll have to be done your way and for an American electorate of course but im sure you won’t need any inspiration from me or any other country for that part.
Check out the working class party that started in michigan in 2016.
Well, that would be a good way to guarantee republican dominance, yes.
The workers of America will listen to reason if the left has someone strong enough to rally the workers behind them
You underestimate how sensitive the working class is to anything involving removal of capitalism. The red scare never really ended.
Workers are scared of the terminology but not the ideology, if someone who’s powerful and charismatic enough is able to clearly explain left wing values the workers will follow along. Workers may be scared but they’re also easily convinced.
Wow, there are people who actually believe that in real life? Huh. Good luck with your glorious revolution
Yes leftists exist, not everyone is a liberal
I consider myself a leftist (though I’m sure I don’t pass the purity tests of many on here), but I’m not deluded enough to believe what you said.
I’m literally in a union position, and I work with college educated people who support Trump.
The purity test here is simple, do you belive in private property (capitalism)?
Conventional Democratic Party “wisdom” just accomplished that.
I guess we’ll just have to put up with a couple of months of this fantasizing bullshit, before people realize just how much the paradigm is going to shift… We aren’t going to be talking about organizing parties, because it will be moot.
Any real opposition will be removed (imprisoned and/or executed), and anything that remains will be purely for show.
More voters should have listened to Bernie.
He told people what to do.
It is not the voters job to embrace a progressive modern platform nor is it their job to get themselves energized over said policies
But both parties have shoved that false belief down voters throats that is the voters’ faults when they fail to deliver
Not sure exactly the point you’re trying to make, but you’re half right. It is a politicians job to convince voters to support their policies, that’s true, but it’s also equally true that voters should support good policies. While it’s not their “job” to do so, they still suffer the consequences for failing to do so all the same. No matter how you slice it, people were stupid to not listen to Bernie all this time.
In a democracy, it sure as Hell is the voters’ job to do all that. And more, for that matter.
In fact, the voters should be controlling the parties (if not abolishing them entirely), not the other way around!
No no no, the Democratic Party is some magical uncontrollable entity, we must abandon it, making progressive change infinitely more difficult.
/s if it wasn’t obvious. Banana is a bad faith agitator. They desired a GOP victory.
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It was the DNC’s job to be clear about Bernie’s message. I voted for him in the 2016 primary even though I was bombarded with “radical socialist regressive left” Bernie articles in my social media feeds at the time.
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t actively seek out information and just accept the picture painted by the news that’s fed to them.
It was the DNC’s job to be clear about Bernie’s message.
LOL the DNC has actively fought against Bernie’s message.
This is a systematic failure. Non-Harris voters are definitely at fault, but so is the DNC for moving further right and abandoning progressives and for sitting on their ass for 4 years.
Enjoy having Trump. I really don’t have any more words for people like you.
You lot gave everyone Trump by refusing to listen to voters concerns.
You apparently have still not learnt.
Lol I actually voted and voted for Harris. FWIW I’m also a former Republican who voted for Trump in ‘16.
If I’m able to fucking learn then so will all these morons who stayed home and didn’t vote because of either their apathy or “principles”.
Those people gave Trump the path to the White House again.
Lol I actually voted and voted for Harris. FWIW I’m also a former Republican who voted for Trump in ‘16.
Oh look, it’s the only voter Harris cared about.
Why does it matter if Harris cared about my vote? I did my job. Did you?
Why does it matter if Harris cared about my vote?
Because seeking votes is what campaigning is.
I did my job. Did you?
I voted for Harris. Harris didn’t do hers. She ran to the right and alienated the left.
Me and others like me warned what would happen as a result, and it was interpreted in all cases as trump support. Got called Russians so often that c/politics eventually made a rule forbidding it. Centrists thought they knew better. Thought that genocide had popular support. Thought that Dick Cheney’s endorsement was a win. No one likes Dick Cheney. Even Republicans hated him before the endorsement. The constant abuse aimed at Muslim voters left Trump an in-road that he exploited. Pretending that the economy was fine and that everything was better now, after all the inflation that it sure as fuck looked like the Biden administration just sat back and watched.
Not to mention the very public failures of the Biden administration on labor: Failing to pass BBB, killing the minimum wage increase, and breaking the rail strike. The Biden administration earned the distrust of workers, and it doesn’t matter how fair you think that is. Harris didn’t do a damned thing to differentiate herself from him on this issue. More of the same was untenable, worse was the only alternative, so people stayed home because they weren’t being represented by either party, and one was insulting them and telling them that they weren’t struggling because the economy was working fine for billionaires.
Hell, the only daylight between Harris and Biden was when she moved to his right. Promising to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet. Campaigning with Liz Cheney. Even Biden wasn’t that tonedeaf.
We warned you. We kept warning you because we knew what was at stake. You were all so fucking pigheaded that you refused to listen.
Yes, but people forgot that his real message was to get out there an be the change. Bernie’s message was never about relying on or believing in the Democrats, it was that change only happens when we mobilize.
He told us to get out there and run ourselves and get personally involved and invested in our local politics so we can be the revolution… We just chose not to listen to him.
People talk about “the Dems” like they are a monolith.
AOC unseated a long term Congress member who was tightly connected to the New York power structure. She did it by hitting the streets and talking to the locals. She built up voter support and won her primary.
I know it’s an uphill battle, but it is possible to change things.
Yes, this is what I’m saying. I’m not saying take up pitchforks and bring the fight to the democrats like they’re the villain, I’m just saying not to blindly trust them either. They are a part of the system; even if not in permanent institution certainly in effect. Bernie didn’t say go fight the Dems, in fact he proved that you can strategically use them. But don’t think that D = good or D = hero automatically either.
It’s not about fighting the dems, it’s about trusting in ourselves instead of others. It’s about autonomy and the fact that nobody is going to fight the fight for you, you’ve gotta get your knuckles dirty. Don’t trust anyone to do the work for you, red or blue; get out and do the fucking work yourself.
Thank you.
He told everyone to vote for Dems, instead of make a legitimate opposition to the right
Then did nothing but carry water for them for the last 4 years.
God i’ll never forget where i was when he dropped out. I had phone banked and donated and I was watching his concession speech just…wrecked maaan, wrecked at how the DNC et al had ratfucked him and how tilted the game was… and while I’m saltin my booze with tears someone in the group asks him “What do we do now?” and he says something like
“Vote Dem, vote in your primaries”
and my heart fell in that shitty whiskey with the rest. Maaaan, i never knew i still had faith to lose until that moment.
Haha, I feel similar, I was really mad for a while that he just gave in, but at the same time, I think he did what he thought was best for the country at the time, Trump was and will be terrible for the country, and if the DNC was going to fuck over Bernie and he thought he couldn’t possibly win third party and if he DID fight that fight, Trump would assuredly have won.
Of course in hindsight, he won anyway so it would have been better to take the fight to the DNC then.
I agree but the line of attack towards Hispanic voters would be that Sanders is trying to implement the Socialism that they fled from.
Hispanic voters did not “flee socialism.” Why are you lying?
I think they might be referring to Cubans?
Oh no. We might not win Florida, since that’s still a swing state.
Probably, but it was still absolutely braindead moronic in multiple ways. First of all, most Hispanic Americans came from somewhere other than Cuba, so the bullshit about “socialism” doesn’t even begin to apply. Second, communism as implemented by Cuba is entirely fucking different from the socialism advocated for by Bernie Sanders, and conflating them is not only ridiculous but downright defamatory.
Hispanic voters fled from the EU?
I hate how when we call a Nazi a anazi, it “loses meaning”…
But the right calls Joe Biden a fucking communist so we need to move the party to the right.
It’s real obvious when regardless of reality moderates just keep repeating “this proves we need to go to the right”.
It doesn’t fucking work, we keep trying it and even if we get a Dem in office, they can’t/won’t fix things faster than Republicans can break it.
I get why the politicians don’t, they make a lot of more net from corporations by doing it, but I’ll never understand why a regular ass citizens legitimately believes it’s a valid strategy
Maybe. Not sure we can be afraid of that anymore, though, if I’m being perfectly honest. Even Harris was labeled a "kam"munist, so I’m not sure it could get any worse.
I recently tried to explain to Lemmy that non-white working class voters see their social program as weird and off putting. I was downvoted to oblivion just for honestly relating an opinion from people these chronically online “allies” would never hear from, because they simply don’t associate with seamstresses/fruit packers/construction site crossing guards etc. Not to mention the majority of these folks can’t speak any language but English.
Tell my Chilean wife how she is going to make more money tomorrow than she did today and she will listen. Tell her she is a bigot because she believes that it takes more than “feeling like” a women to actually “be” a woman and she will stop listening. That is what just happened here.
I am from a different cultural context than her and I tend to believe what the people who study these issues have to say ie: gender affirming care saves lives. But to say that this one issue determines a persons entry or exclusion from our ever shrinking tent is political suicide, no matter how much we might wish that wasn’t the case.
WHAT SOCIAL PROGRAM?? The Democrats didn’t run on any of this woke mind virus bullshit you’re complaining about. Trans people were the target of choice for the conservatives despite being basically a miniscule sliver of the population and Democrats just mumbled some generic pablum about privacy and compassion before changing the topic as quickly as possible. In no remote sense was “trans rights” a purity test for the Democrats, as clearly evidenced by all the fucking Republicans involved in the campaign.
This is just divorced from reality, and maybe that’s the real sentiment you two have landed on, but it’s not because the Democrats did anything to foster it.
That’s great analysis except for one detail… what progressive policies?! Like ceding the “border issue” to the republicans? Like backpedaling on fracking when they needed votes from PA? I voted for her because she was the only option but in no universe was her campaign progressive.
I think they mean that her running mate did some progressive stuff as governor. Or maybe we’re just so far right now that referring to LGBT as if they’re human beings counts as being progressive
The build back better bill had Republicans calling fixing roads instead of letting them collapse progressive. The ‘middle’ point on infrastructure seems to be ‘let some roads and buildings collapse’ like that apartment building in Florida. Roads are something even libertarians want the government to do. It literally doesn’t matter what dems say, Republicans will have the media calling it progressive to demonize it.
Ive always liked Bernie. Bernie demonstrates the Democratic party would much rather lose with Kamala than win with Bernie. Never thought I would see them campaigning with Dik Cheney, the mask fell away for a few moments on that one.
I legit could not believe they accepted that endorsement at all, much less ran with it as hard as they did.
I did vote for Bernie. I know. But this isn’t helping. Regret about stuff you didn’t do changes nothing. We can’t be Uncle Rico about this. What can we do now? Anything?
Get to know your neighbors. Organizing doesn’t have to mean politically, and community is the only strength we have.
I’m dead serious. Get to know your neighbors. At home. At work? (lolsafely) Do less work, more talking to your co-workers about work. About whatever. But yaknow, get to know them. And probably find out you agree about a lot of the stuff that’s not on tv.
Organizing isn’t some nebulous concept, politics isn’t for lawyers. Organizing (and politicking) 's just… talking to people. People who like you n me who can’t “influence politics” and don’t know how to start. But we do know what we need.
People power is right there with us every day, politics is everyday life. So get to know your neighbors
If democrats were capable of listening we wouldnt have two terms of donald trump.
Not even a single term
Hell, if the US could finally get rid of this first past the pole, winner takes all system, the democratic and Republican parties wouldn’t even exist anymore, they’d both be replaced by better parties
There were more Harris voters in Vermont than Sanders voters. So maybe Bernie should be listening to Kamala.
Steve Berry, a Democrat, was also running as independent in that election. He peeled off about 8k voters.
The difference is that Bernie won lmao.
If Kamala were only running in Vermont, she would have won too.
But she wasn’t only running in Vermont, and she lost.
Same thing that happened every time Bernie tried to run nationwide. Did he take his own advice?
Al Gore too.
It is absolutely clear now. The DNC is a private company whose main function is to fund raise, period. If they also win an election then that’s great, but if it comes to a choice between winning and raising money, they will choose raising money. They will never move to the left to win voters if it will cost them fund raising opportunities from the center and right.
I’m not thrilled with the DNC either, but I’m not buying this whole idea that they are shooting themselves in the foot on purpose. The DNC does better when they win elections.
In previous elections, the candidate that raised the most money was more likely to win. Also, a moderate Democrat won the last election. They made the decisions they made in this election cycle because they thought it was their best chance of winning.
I don’t have access to the data that they have to determine whether the leftist that Lemmy wants on the ticket could actually win the general.
I’d certainly like to believe that it’s just that simple and all the DNC needs to do is put up a pro-Palestine Democratic Socialist and the election is in the bag… I just don’t know if that’s the reality on the ground. If that is not the reality on the ground, are the leftists that stayed home still committed to their protest? Or is there a point at which they would admit that we haven’t had a true leftist on the ticket because a true leftist is not viable?
I hope someone can put together some clear data to answer that question soon… I’m afraid that a pro-Palestine Socialist will get crushed by AIPAC funded attack ads about Marxism and supporting terrorism that will really stick with moderates, and that no matter how energized the base is it wouldn’t be enough to win the general.
I am not saying that they are losing on purpose. I’m saying that they are making decisions about policies and candidates based on fund raising rather than on attracting voters. On purpose or not, they did shoot themselves in the foot by courting disaffected Republican voters. Everyone knew they were not going to win a lot of those voters, but they sure did rake in a lot of dough. I believe that is their primary motivation.
I mean the Republicans are doing the same. Lining their pockets as they make decisions. Why is it so foreign to do with one costume rather than the other?
I’m not thrilled with the DNC either, but I’m not buying this whole idea that they are shooting themselves in the foot on purpose. The DNC does better when they win elections.
Grey’s Law applies here.
This honestly makes so much more sense than anything else. I think you nailed it. Republicans are motivated by money and exerting social control so they write up manifestos (p2025), take over the courts, work hard to disenfranchise voters, lie, cheat, anything is on the table. The DNC does indeed seem fairly comfortable with losing by comparison, despite the fact that the leftist ideals they supposedly dabble in create a moral imperative to never lose. I wonder if Republicans fucking pay the DNC money to run these candidates we all know aren’t the best. They’re just good enough to get votes against mother fucking Trump. But not always good enough to win, barely good enough when they are, typically.
The democrats represent the group of americans that think money and “american ingenuity” can solve all problems. No problem is a real problem because we can always solve it if we just try real hard to make the current thing better.
Thats why they are the status quo party, its literally their whole founding belief.
The republicans are a party of changing backwards, which only works sometimes, usually when people are upset: “remember when things weren’t awful…?”
The rest of the parties are thinking long term and are true parties of change but you need money to make it in politics, or else not enough people even know you exist at the higher political levels. There were I think five “third” parties on my ballot but I only ever heard people talk about one or two of them.
I’m not sure if its more likely the democrat party collapses out of disinterest and a third party replaces them, or if the democrat party will become a true party of change for the future.
It could just continue on as the party of “America is amazing and will always be amazing so vote for us for more amazing.”
Republicans don’t need to pay the DNC, both are funded by the same billionaires most of the time.
“Nah guys, we’re good on money, thanks. Got enough.”
Imo, you’ve got all the prices. However, I would put them in a different order.
Short answer: Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.
There’s a small group of king-makers in the US and the candidate who offers them the most becomes president. Recently, the people who decide who gets to be president has started to include social media companies and amazon, who hosts half the Internet. Trump also cozied up to the American owner of the company the owns tiktok. Thats how he won. Trumps also great for social media engagement and news channel views.
Even candidates who happen to be better than the republican candidate, no democratic hopeful worth being of “the left” will ever be given enough money to become the president of America. Even if they started from a position that would appeal to them, they would have to compromise on everything that made them that in order to be allowed anywhere near the Whitehouse by the American ultra wealthy.
What you’re seeing isn’t the failure of the Democrats to correctly triangulate but the strength of the American ultra wealthy consent manufacturing machine.
I don’t disagree those factors are at play, but they’re not as important as you seem to think in this day and age.
Bernie had real grassroots support and the dems stomped it out. The key is populist rhetoric and speaking about change, the DNC has basically been running on “not Trump” and “well things are bad but they would be worse under Trump.” while that is true, that’s not a winning message, give people something real to fight for and you’ll win support.
On the contrary, they’re more important now than they’ve ever been. There also hasn’t been an election where the highest spender didn’t win. Its THE determining factor.
The same people who fund presidential campaigns for Republicans also spend lots of money on influencing democratic nominee choices. The whole things been captured.
Its like you all can’t see the woods for the trees, in the politest way possible. You see the state of trump and all the things that make him an aweful candidate and you say “how could the dems not beat that” instead of “what on earth could exert so much influence that even being that terrible couldn’t stop him?”
There’s no amount of “the dems not having a strong enough message” that overcomes the divide in the candidates, without huge influence. Their campaign wasn’t great but no where close enough to lose to someone like trump, in a fair fight. It would’ve had to have been utterly shocking from start to finish and, as bad as it was, it wasn’t that bad.
You really think Trump outspent Harris? You’d be wrong, go look at the data, trump just went on spaces “normal” people listen, such as podcasts, where Harris didn’t.
He spoke about how America is broken, he gave incorrect reasons why, and is lying about helping people with his policies, but he didn’t lie and tell people everything is fine like the dems
Republican or Democrat, the candidate that spends the most wins. Therefore, fund raising is winning.
you do know that in all last 3 elections dnc outspent gop by more than 50% ? last time we raised less than gop was with bush in 2004. harris raised more than 1.6 billion while trump raised about a billion. 600 million extra money they get is for not having a candidate with anti-rich anti-establishment anti-israel policies. hillary was similar story yet we barely saw her campaigning compared to trump.
compare that to jill stein who raised 2 million. dnc probably spent 10 times that money on just smearing her.
It’s downright sad that I can’t think of any argument against this.
That never stopped you before. Just scream that they’re a trumper like you did when you were wrong about genocide and didn’t want to admit it.
And the rich.
Bernie is a leftist politician. The Democrat party is not a liberal leftist party, they’re a conservative corporatist party.
Further, Bernie is a progressive whereas Dems are status quo
His message hasn’t changed. They don’t only not listen, but actively oppose his message.
Dems imbraced the race to the bottom instead of being a true opposition party. I voted for them this time around but never again unless they make a platform surrounding core left prencipals and left leadership. Many within my communities have up on political means to help their communities and threw themselves into volunteering, activism, and self sustainability. You can’t demand bottomless support and obedience from your base while ignoring their cries for help.
Dems said they are the party of science and facts but wouldn’t support universal health care or simply stop sending weapons to Isreal. If they were just as ravenous as republican are can you honestly say we couldn’t achieve those good things?
Dems said the Supreme court and justice system was courupt, but never even investigated the court or made cuts to the militarization of the police forces. Police are still killing people at the same rates with no real accountability. If the Supreme Court was left leaning Republicans would have expanded the court to make it right leaning.
Just do what Republicans do to get there way but for good. I honestly can’t think of one dem policy that has been as impactful as some of the top Republican changes in the past 50 years.
Ultimately we need to come together and demand better because if the dems don’t change it’ll be 50 more years of being steamrolled.
Just do what Republicans do to get there way but for good. I honestly can’t think of one dem policy that has been as impactful as some of the top Republican changes in the past 50 years.
its not a bug but feature. They exist to sabotage people interest and giving them false hope of an alternative. we have become one party two candidates system, where one markets racism other wokeness, both of which cost their mega-donors nothing.
I wish the democrats represented wokness.
they don’t, they just market it same as oil companies running pro-climate ads
Honestly, your democratic party is very right wing to most of European. And you saying people give up on politics and turn to sctivism is so sad.
If the government doesn’t take care of his poor, minorities, what are they doing.
If the government doesn’t take care of his poor, minorities, what are they doing.
Grifting and insider trading.
If the government doesn’t take care of his poor, minorities, what are they doing.
Facilitating the transfer of wealth to the richest fraction of the population.
The government and the companies in the US work together as legal shields protecting the wealthy and money siphoning systems from the public to the wealthy.
For example: Johnson&Johnson poison babies with asbestos in their talc baby powder. Instead of the Johnson family losing money or facing any consequences, the company and its employees bear the repercussions. The government investigates at its own pace and might be defunded in the areas relating to investigations. The government doesn’t guarantee health care so people don’t even know they have issues from asbestos because they can’t even go in to be diagnosed without significant cost. Accessing legal help for a class action can also be difficult. These large companies also have huge legal teams to defend them including lobbyists who represent companies and as their sole job lobby the government. And then the government also gives tax breaks to Johnson and Johnson, and nearly free publicly funded research from university research and students who not only paid to go to school, but don’t receive money for these student publications. And then J&J can take that research and profit off it.
America is a giant work camp.
