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Democrats can only win at the margin of the electoral college. That margin is not progressive. The coastal Democratic strongholds are always going to vote blue.

by sp527 6y ago

Democrats can only win at the margin of the electoral college. That margin is not progressive. The coastal Democratic strongholds are always going to vote blue. It makes absolutely no sense to adopt their platform. Political game theory favors appealing to the margin and the margin is moderate. The margin doesn’t take an extreme stance on social issues a la San Francisco. Quite the opposite: they hear things like “defund the police” and liberals shouting down “all lives matter” and they feel rightfully as if Democrats are threatening their place in society. The progressive politics of exclusion and contempt are totally unfit to the task of winning the electorate just as much as the equivalent conservative extreme.

arrrg 6y ago
Why rightfully?
- sp527 6y ago
  The Democratic Party supports policies that privilege minorities over White people or are even outright racially discriminatory, such as affirmative action. Affirmative action strives to achieve top down equal results at the expense of privileging certain people on the basis of their biological character. The right solution is bottom up economic stimulus to create equal opportunity, and it should support poor Black/Hispanic Americans as well as poor White Americans (of which there are a sizable and growing number). You need look no further than the failure of Prop 16 - which sought to remove language from the California Constitution that provides equal protections and consideration to all Californians irrespective of race, gender, etc - to understand how deeply unpopular these sorts of strategies to rectify societal imbalance really are. While I am personally largely socially liberal, I’ve never understood how Democrats unironically adopted a policy agenda that explicitly preferences certain people on the basis of race, which is quite possibly the worst way to address racial injustice.
confidantlake 6y ago
Another take is the "moderate" will always vote for their party regardless. By nominating an extremist you get out the vote of those who normally stay at home. Trump was an extreme candidate but the "moderate" Republicans stuck with him. I feel the same thing would have happened with Bernie. The "moderate" Democrat might have shaken their head a bit, but they it wasn't like they would vote for a Republican.
- sp527 6y ago
  This is the sort of flawed analysis that has likely plagued Democratic strategists and resulted in the party being so needlessly impotent over the past few decades. It doesn’t account for the (problematic) winner-take-all mechanics of the electoral college. Furthermore, according to Gallup in its most recent poll on the issue, 36% of the electorate is independent.

by sp527 6y ago

arrrg 6y ago

Why rightfully?

sp527 6y ago
The Democratic Party supports policies that privilege minorities over White people or are even outright racially discriminatory, such as affirmative action. Affirmative action strives to achieve top down equal results at the expense of privileging certain people on the basis of their biological character. The right solution is bottom up economic stimulus to create equal opportunity, and it should support poor Black/Hispanic Americans as well as poor White Americans (of which there are a sizable and growing number). You need look no further than the failure of Prop 16 - which sought to remove language from the California Constitution that provides equal protections and consideration to all Californians irrespective of race, gender, etc - to understand how deeply unpopular these sorts of strategies to rectify societal imbalance really are. While I am personally largely socially liberal, I’ve never understood how Democrats unironically adopted a policy agenda that explicitly preferences certain people on the basis of race, which is quite possibly the worst way to address racial injustice.

confidantlake 6y ago

Another take is the "moderate" will always vote for their party regardless. By nominating an extremist you get out the vote of those who normally stay at home. Trump was an extreme candidate but the "moderate" Republicans stuck with him. I feel the same thing would have happened with Bernie. The "moderate" Democrat might have shaken their head a bit, but they it wasn't like they would vote for a Republican.

sp527 6y ago
This is the sort of flawed analysis that has likely plagued Democratic strategists and resulted in the party being so needlessly impotent over the past few decades. It doesn’t account for the (problematic) winner-take-all mechanics of the electoral college. Furthermore, according to Gallup in its most recent poll on the issue, 36% of the electorate is independent.