5 ms·

> they are secretly happy with what the other branches are doing Knowing people in democratic politics, this isn’t true. The root of the problem is that they d

by tyre 2y ago

> they are secretly happy with what the other branches are doing Knowing people in democratic politics, this isn’t true. The root of the problem is that they don’t understand or prioritize power. They have overwhelming support for every major issue: abortion, gun control, corporate taxes, HNI taxes, healthcare, social security, climate, gay rights. All of them. And yet they lose. Minority on the Supreme Court, house, senate, presidency. Think about Obama’s first presidency. Sixty senators. What happens if they: 1. Make DC a state. That’s two senators. I don’t think they could get Puerto Rico. 2. Make Election Day a federal holiday. That spikes turnout, which benefits democrats (see: advantage in every major issue.) That’s the type of thinking that gives and maintains power. But they don’t think that way until it’s panic time and already over.

avmich 2y ago
Having power for the purpose of having power isn't too meaningful. In democracies parties (already questionable concept) should ideally not worry about power, but worry about reaching useful goals.
- nine_k 2y ago
  It's hard to reach a useful goal without power to do so. Also, think game-theoretically (or practically). If you don't dedicate at least some effort to gain and retain power, you will be displaced by those who do. The first priority of a pilot is to stay in the air, the second is flying in the right direction.
  - avmich 2y ago
    Right, and it's all rather obvious. The problem is better seen when, if you focus on staying in power, you have to spend all your resources on this goal, and you can't reach any other goal. Republican party in USA currently does rather little - they do dismantle government, but the more they do that, the harder it is to them to stay in power, so their resources are self-limiting.
smallerfish 2y ago
https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-obama-had-total-control/985146007/ https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-oba...
telotortium 2y ago
> They have overwhelming support for every major issue Obviously not, or they wouldn’t have lost. From a purely power-based standpoint, Obama probably should have pushed more in 2008. But that’s the only time he could have done it - even passing ACA got the Democrats severely punished in the 2010 Congressional elections.
- felixgallo 2y ago
  you may be undervaluing the effect of conservative billionaires owning every conceivable propaganda outlet and mashing on the fear, racism, and division buttons like they were going out of style.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- roenxi 2y ago
  The major issues [0] included things like the economy, foreign policy, violent crime and immigration. Which generally favour Trump & the right wing. I don't understand the lack of strategic empathy among some on the left for being realistic about what people are focusing on. The election was close to a coin flip, obviously the democrats didn't have a big advantage. Climate change might not even be a major issue any more, people are cooling to it. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-t...
- modriano 2y ago
  > Obviously not, or they wouldn’t have lost. That doesn't follow. It would be true if everyone voted on a correct and comprehensive understanding of the issues and where candidates actually stood on issues, but a massive proportion of the population just votes on vibes and is completely ignorant of actual policies or issues. Trump is objectively more responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade than any other person, but ask a swing voter and it's pretty likely they won't know how Trump has anything to do with Roe v Wade and think he's pretty tolerant of abortion. People don't vote on actual policy. They vote on vibes and other heuristics.
CPLX 2y ago
When you ask yourself why the Democratic Party doesn't in fact do things that you think would be obvious ways to further it's goals and purpose, over and over again, for generations, you might want to start pondering this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
- mring33621 2y ago
  the evidence is in front of us the Dem leadership has done nothing substantial about their supposedly spotlight issues for 50 years. there is a reason for this
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Dems have not held power in the US since at least Reagan, Full Stop. "51" senators (when at least two aren't even democrats and one routinely votes against the party for his literal coal lobbyist cronies) isn't Power. The one time Democrats held some power for about FIFTY DAYS, we got the ACA. We could have gotten medicare for all but a "Democratic" senator refused. Medicare for all has been on and off the Democrat platform since before RFK got got. That so many "liberals" and "leftists" insist the democratic party hasn't done anything despite fifty years of being explicitly voted away from the reigns of power is part of the problem. Go look at the coalition FDR had if you want to know what it takes to push Progressive policy in the US system.
    - CPLX 2y ago
      The last time dems held the House, Senate, and Presidency at the same time was a little over two years ago.
jghn 2y ago
> They have overwhelming support for every major issue The problem is for a lot of these this only becomes apparent when pollsters remove all context and political baggage. For instance, ask people if they like Obamacare/ACA and results are mixed. But go down the line and ask about the constituent pieces of it all and you'll see positive support. The Democrats have completely and utterly failed at packaging these things up with a message that resonates with the people. Instead they've allowed their opponents to demonize their stances. And that's how we wind up with people holding signs that say things like "Keep government out of Medicare"
- gowld 2y ago
  The truth is fighting with one hand behind its back when it is fighting lies. Creation is harder than destruction.
- intended 2y ago
  Stop blaming the dems. The Repubs found an infinite money/PR glitch. 1) They create an issue at Fox. 2) Sell it breathlessly 3) congress person brings it up in the legislature, points to news reports as proof 4) pass a new bill, or stall another 5) Refer to these actions on Fox, showing it as proof. 6) go to the polls after creating the arena you want to fight in. Add in the internet and the media advertising incentives, and you have escalating sensationalism and extremism. Post watergate, the Republican strategists decided to win at all costs. There is no messaging that is “nice”, and if dems are aggressive they get penalized for it. Because many people didn’t believe this was true. It was too outlandish.
  - jghn 2y ago
    I understand why things are the way they are. And the dems are pretty fucked now. Whining about it doesn't help though, and it won't get them out of this mess. But neither will just saying "we have better ideas". They need to come up with a solution that'll actually work. Instead they seem to keep punching themselves in the face.
    - netsharc 2y ago
nine_k 2y ago
During these elections, Dems lost even the support of the precariate, the least wealthy who traditionally voted for left wing. No wonder actually, because they largely stopped to represent the the interests of these groups. When I see a black worker in a small grocery store wearing a MAGA hat, I understand that Dems have failed miserably. All the DEI boards did not represent interests of that guy.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  There's two points here: 1. Most US media (especially radio) being conservative allowed Republicans to define Democrats in their terms. Consequently, the "Democrats are all trans rights and DEI" was a Republican choice. 2. The Democrats certainly didn't make it hard for (1) to happen.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Look, this is not some Fox News, this is The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-meeting/681548/?gift=Exty0c37iBapZfMrmNPU4u9msMLlxJnki6C-z_1nvTQ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-mee... I'm no Trump fan, but losing to Trump required some serious efforts :-(
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Yes, the Democratic party is terrible at avoiding dumb issue traps that are unpopular. But the public dissemination of these positions is very conservative media driven. Counterfactual: if progressive media had been as dominant as conservative media is, everyone would have spent the last 4 years hearing about government infrastructure spending and Project 2025. In reality, you instead heard a relentless drumbeat of easily attackable Democratic positions, with nary a peep about Republican extremes. So, yes, Democrat fault for having those positions in the first place. But the de facto situation is mostly created by conservative-dominated media being able to repeatedly broadcast those to an uninformed public.
cogman10 2y ago
> They have overwhelming support for every major issue: abortion, gun control, corporate taxes, HNI taxes, healthcare, social security, climate, gay rights. All of them. And yet they lose. The dems spent this last election cycle distancing, downplaying, and reversing each of these issues. Is it any wonder why they are losing? Rather than play to their strengths and party positions they endlessly and relentlessly try and shift right. Do dems actually support abortion rights? Kamala didn't really campaign on that. How about gun control? Kamala was all too happy to talk about how she's a proud gun owner. The Kamala/Biden campaign took painstaking measures to try and quash every single one of these issues rather than centering it in the discussion. Instead, they wasted an entire campaign talking about how much Liz Cheney loves them. Even now, Schumer is saying "let's just sit back and let people watch what's happening" rather than pressing his advantage and Jeffries is saying "It's not great, but God is in control". Dems desperately hate their base. That's why they lose. They simply transparent in the fact that the only thing that matters is corporate campaign contributions.
- xienze 2y ago
  > How about gun control? Kamala was all too happy to talk about how she's a proud gun owner. On the contrary, they very much want to “control” guns out of existence. But they know during election season they have to tone down the rhetoric in the hopes that people forget everything they’ve said about guns during the last three years.
  - gg82 2y ago
    I don't think what Kamala and Walz said/showed about guns was in any way reassuring to gun owners.
- telotortium 2y ago
  > Do dems actually support abortion rights? Kamala didn't really campaign on that. How about gun control? Kamala was all too happy to talk about how she's a proud gun owner. On the contrary, abortion was one of the main issues the Democrats campaigned on. I live in California, and while I didn’t get presidential campaign ads for obvious reasons, down ballot Democrats campaigned hard on a pro-choice message, despite the fact that California is about the last place where pro-choice is under threat. (Gun control a little less, but I still saw it sometimes.) The issue is that Democrats successfully passed a lot of pro-choice ballot measures in 2022 after Dobbs. In 2024 they couldn’t use this issue much, since the states with heavy abortion restrictions after 2022 are much less sympathetic to the pro-choice cause, particularly because Democrat party messaging has moved a long way from “safe, legal, and rare”. Also, Trump distanced himself from the pro-life cause during the 2024 election, even removing the strongest pro-life language from the Republican party platform. Without the pro-choice vote that delivered the midterms, and combined with the general incompetence of the Kamala campaign, Democrats really had little to offer, especially since they’re associated with unpopular policies like DEI, open borders, trans advocacy, inflation, etc.
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
>I do not believe US policy makers and thought leaders think FGM is a good thing in the US This may not occur to you, you assume other people are like yourself. That they work in an office and perform a similar job as your own. Given that scenario, if the turnout of Democrats is lower than you expect, the only reasonable conclusion is that some bosses are less reasonable than your own, and ducking out for 40 minutes to go vote at 2pm just isn't allowed! And therefor if it was a federal holiday, their office jobs would just call it off for that whole day, they'd vote, and the Republicans would never win an election ever again. However, the people who would vote for Democrats don't have such jobs. The jobs they have are menial, they are working all hours of the day and night, someone has to cover that shift on election day, and if somehow one or another of them does have an office job, there's no guarantee that it will be a paid holiday at that employer. My own employer ignores several federal holidays and instead gives us off days for Easter (Good Friday) and some other Christian holidays. Your political opponents would hoof it through a warzone to cast their ballot. Having to vote early (or late, or apply for a mail-in) isn't why your numbers are down.

by tyre 2y ago

avmich 2y ago

Having power for the purpose of having power isn't too meaningful. In democracies parties (already questionable concept) should ideally not worry about power, but worry about reaching useful goals.

nine_k 2y ago
It's hard to reach a useful goal without power to do so. Also, think game-theoretically (or practically). If you don't dedicate at least some effort to gain and retain power, you will be displaced by those who do. The first priority of a pilot is to stay in the air, the second is flying in the right direction.
- avmich 2y ago
  Right, and it's all rather obvious. The problem is better seen when, if you focus on staying in power, you have to spend all your resources on this goal, and you can't reach any other goal. Republican party in USA currently does rather little - they do dismantle government, but the more they do that, the harder it is to them to stay in power, so their resources are self-limiting.

smallerfish 2y ago

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-obama-had-total-control/985146007/ https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-oba...

telotortium 2y ago

> They have overwhelming support for every major issue Obviously not, or they wouldn’t have lost. From a purely power-based standpoint, Obama probably should have pushed more in 2008. But that’s the only time he could have done it - even passing ACA got the Democrats severely punished in the 2010 Congressional elections.

felixgallo 2y ago
you may be undervaluing the effect of conservative billionaires owning every conceivable propaganda outlet and mashing on the fear, racism, and division buttons like they were going out of style.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
roenxi 2y ago
The major issues [0] included things like the economy, foreign policy, violent crime and immigration. Which generally favour Trump & the right wing. I don't understand the lack of strategic empathy among some on the left for being realistic about what people are focusing on. The election was close to a coin flip, obviously the democrats didn't have a big advantage. Climate change might not even be a major issue any more, people are cooling to it. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-t...
modriano 2y ago
> Obviously not, or they wouldn’t have lost. That doesn't follow. It would be true if everyone voted on a correct and comprehensive understanding of the issues and where candidates actually stood on issues, but a massive proportion of the population just votes on vibes and is completely ignorant of actual policies or issues. Trump is objectively more responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade than any other person, but ask a swing voter and it's pretty likely they won't know how Trump has anything to do with Roe v Wade and think he's pretty tolerant of abortion. People don't vote on actual policy. They vote on vibes and other heuristics.

CPLX 2y ago

When you ask yourself why the Democratic Party doesn't in fact do things that you think would be obvious ways to further it's goals and purpose, over and over again, for generations, you might want to start pondering this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

mring33621 2y ago
the evidence is in front of us the Dem leadership has done nothing substantial about their supposedly spotlight issues for 50 years. there is a reason for this
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Dems have not held power in the US since at least Reagan, Full Stop. "51" senators (when at least two aren't even democrats and one routinely votes against the party for his literal coal lobbyist cronies) isn't Power. The one time Democrats held some power for about FIFTY DAYS, we got the ACA. We could have gotten medicare for all but a "Democratic" senator refused. Medicare for all has been on and off the Democrat platform since before RFK got got. That so many "liberals" and "leftists" insist the democratic party hasn't done anything despite fifty years of being explicitly voted away from the reigns of power is part of the problem. Go look at the coalition FDR had if you want to know what it takes to push Progressive policy in the US system.
  - CPLX 2y ago
    The last time dems held the House, Senate, and Presidency at the same time was a little over two years ago.

jghn 2y ago

> They have overwhelming support for every major issue The problem is for a lot of these this only becomes apparent when pollsters remove all context and political baggage. For instance, ask people if they like Obamacare/ACA and results are mixed. But go down the line and ask about the constituent pieces of it all and you'll see positive support. The Democrats have completely and utterly failed at packaging these things up with a message that resonates with the people. Instead they've allowed their opponents to demonize their stances. And that's how we wind up with people holding signs that say things like "Keep government out of Medicare"

gowld 2y ago
The truth is fighting with one hand behind its back when it is fighting lies. Creation is harder than destruction.
intended 2y ago
Stop blaming the dems. The Repubs found an infinite money/PR glitch. 1) They create an issue at Fox. 2) Sell it breathlessly 3) congress person brings it up in the legislature, points to news reports as proof 4) pass a new bill, or stall another 5) Refer to these actions on Fox, showing it as proof. 6) go to the polls after creating the arena you want to fight in. Add in the internet and the media advertising incentives, and you have escalating sensationalism and extremism. Post watergate, the Republican strategists decided to win at all costs. There is no messaging that is “nice”, and if dems are aggressive they get penalized for it. Because many people didn’t believe this was true. It was too outlandish.
- jghn 2y ago
  I understand why things are the way they are. And the dems are pretty fucked now. Whining about it doesn't help though, and it won't get them out of this mess. But neither will just saying "we have better ideas". They need to come up with a solution that'll actually work. Instead they seem to keep punching themselves in the face.
  - netsharc 2y ago

nine_k 2y ago

During these elections, Dems lost even the support of the precariate, the least wealthy who traditionally voted for left wing. No wonder actually, because they largely stopped to represent the the interests of these groups. When I see a black worker in a small grocery store wearing a MAGA hat, I understand that Dems have failed miserably. All the DEI boards did not represent interests of that guy.

ethbr1 2y ago
There's two points here: 1. Most US media (especially radio) being conservative allowed Republicans to define Democrats in their terms. Consequently, the "Democrats are all trans rights and DEI" was a Republican choice. 2. The Democrats certainly didn't make it hard for (1) to happen.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Look, this is not some Fox News, this is The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-meeting/681548/?gift=Exty0c37iBapZfMrmNPU4u9msMLlxJnki6C-z_1nvTQ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-mee... I'm no Trump fan, but losing to Trump required some serious efforts :-(
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Yes, the Democratic party is terrible at avoiding dumb issue traps that are unpopular. But the public dissemination of these positions is very conservative media driven. Counterfactual: if progressive media had been as dominant as conservative media is, everyone would have spent the last 4 years hearing about government infrastructure spending and Project 2025. In reality, you instead heard a relentless drumbeat of easily attackable Democratic positions, with nary a peep about Republican extremes. So, yes, Democrat fault for having those positions in the first place. But the de facto situation is mostly created by conservative-dominated media being able to repeatedly broadcast those to an uninformed public.

cogman10 2y ago

> They have overwhelming support for every major issue: abortion, gun control, corporate taxes, HNI taxes, healthcare, social security, climate, gay rights. All of them. And yet they lose. The dems spent this last election cycle distancing, downplaying, and reversing each of these issues. Is it any wonder why they are losing? Rather than play to their strengths and party positions they endlessly and relentlessly try and shift right. Do dems actually support abortion rights? Kamala didn't really campaign on that. How about gun control? Kamala was all too happy to talk about how she's a proud gun owner. The Kamala/Biden campaign took painstaking measures to try and quash every single one of these issues rather than centering it in the discussion. Instead, they wasted an entire campaign talking about how much Liz Cheney loves them. Even now, Schumer is saying "let's just sit back and let people watch what's happening" rather than pressing his advantage and Jeffries is saying "It's not great, but God is in control". Dems desperately hate their base. That's why they lose. They simply transparent in the fact that the only thing that matters is corporate campaign contributions.

xienze 2y ago
> How about gun control? Kamala was all too happy to talk about how she's a proud gun owner. On the contrary, they very much want to “control” guns out of existence. But they know during election season they have to tone down the rhetoric in the hopes that people forget everything they’ve said about guns during the last three years.
- gg82 2y ago
  I don't think what Kamala and Walz said/showed about guns was in any way reassuring to gun owners.
telotortium 2y ago
> Do dems actually support abortion rights? Kamala didn't really campaign on that. How about gun control? Kamala was all too happy to talk about how she's a proud gun owner. On the contrary, abortion was one of the main issues the Democrats campaigned on. I live in California, and while I didn’t get presidential campaign ads for obvious reasons, down ballot Democrats campaigned hard on a pro-choice message, despite the fact that California is about the last place where pro-choice is under threat. (Gun control a little less, but I still saw it sometimes.) The issue is that Democrats successfully passed a lot of pro-choice ballot measures in 2022 after Dobbs. In 2024 they couldn’t use this issue much, since the states with heavy abortion restrictions after 2022 are much less sympathetic to the pro-choice cause, particularly because Democrat party messaging has moved a long way from “safe, legal, and rare”. Also, Trump distanced himself from the pro-life cause during the 2024 election, even removing the strongest pro-life language from the Republican party platform. Without the pro-choice vote that delivered the midterms, and combined with the general incompetence of the Kamala campaign, Democrats really had little to offer, especially since they’re associated with unpopular policies like DEI, open borders, trans advocacy, inflation, etc.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

>I do not believe US policy makers and thought leaders think FGM is a good thing in the US This may not occur to you, you assume other people are like yourself. That they work in an office and perform a similar job as your own. Given that scenario, if the turnout of Democrats is lower than you expect, the only reasonable conclusion is that some bosses are less reasonable than your own, and ducking out for 40 minutes to go vote at 2pm just isn't allowed! And therefor if it was a federal holiday, their office jobs would just call it off for that whole day, they'd vote, and the Republicans would never win an election ever again. However, the people who would vote for Democrats don't have such jobs. The jobs they have are menial, they are working all hours of the day and night, someone has to cover that shift on election day, and if somehow one or another of them does have an office job, there's no guarantee that it will be a paid holiday at that employer. My own employer ignores several federal holidays and instead gives us off days for Easter (Good Friday) and some other Christian holidays. Your political opponents would hoof it through a warzone to cast their ballot. Having to vote early (or late, or apply for a mail-in) isn't why your numbers are down.