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Yeah, I think everyone knows this was preventable. The idea that "people failed the Dems" causes me a lot of anger at this point, because the folks who had the

Yeah, I think everyone knows this was preventable. The idea that "people failed the Dems" causes me a lot of anger at this point, because the folks who had the power to prevent this preferred to slip ever rightward in their platform instead of recognizing any number of highly popular non-conservative positions. People often say "elections have consequences" but they are rarely saying "the democrats need to take this as an objective lesson about how badly they failed to represent their constituencies". Instead Democratic party apologists go into fantasies about Bernie Bros and Russian Interference, while they materially fail to do literally anything useful about the very real current issues. The Democrats need to understand that the election was so close that they could have won if they hadn't worked against themselves at the party level at every turn- if they had a primary of any kind they might have won. I absolutely don't agree that "voting blue" would have fixed this- I think this is the consequence of "voting blue" in 2020 and giving the DNC the idea that they can literally run a piece of toast and win against trump.

ceejayoz 2y ago
I tend to agree. I think the early energy of the Harris campaign was in part because the highly paid centrist consultants hadn't gotten their hooks in yet; there was a notable shift in tone as "these people are fucking weird" disappeared and "we've got Cheney endorsing us!" replaced it. I get, to some extent, why they're gun shy on this; centrism feels like it should be compelling with a crazy person on the other end... but I think the party needs to run an AOC style firebrand soon. Time to at least attempt being a bit leftist for once.
- almosthere 2y ago
  I mean if you're going to be for "leftism" it might need to be redefined because the reason your side lost (the side I used to be on) is that it went fucking nuts.
- roughly 2y ago
  The next person to suggest the Dems need to swing right needs to be thrown in a volcano, or at least outed as an obvious fifth columnist. Harris ran so far to the right she was campaigning with Liz Cheney on being tough on immigration, and she lost the election to a geriatric felon autocrat with no coherent plans because Democratic turnout was down. There’s no credible argument for that style of campaign anymore, and anyone suggesting otherwise is either dangerously incompetent or dangerously disingenuous.
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  "Centrism" is doing a lot of work. I call it "slow fascism", in contrast with the "fast fascism" of Trump. Believe me, while centrists pretend to like rules and procedures, those procedures can rapidly melt away when it's in their interest to. There's a lot of people in the Democratic Party who were personally responsible for, say, selling out the working & middle classes[0]. Hell, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat that jumped ship because the Republican Party is easier to infiltrate. In the middle of the Harris campaign, there was a concerted effort by cryptocurrency whales to primary electorally successful Democrats, purely to send a message: "we will absolutely fuck with you if you don't get in line with us". It was up in the air whether or not Harris would even keep Lina Khan on. The Harris campaign blinked so hard their eyes were stuck shut for the rest of the election. We need an actually progressive party, not just a handful of progressive politicians acting as veneer over the centrist turd that is the DNC. We had that once before with Obama, who was very good at virtue-signalling progress while letting his own party tell him "no" at every juncture. We need to purge the DNC of people who think only about narrowly winning the electoral game so that their machine can perpetuate itself. To be clear, this doesn't mean purity tests. It means doing shit so obviously good and beneficial for everyone that it makes your opponent's rainbow coalition of fascists second-guess why they're brown-nosing a good candidate for the biblical Antichrist just to get one thing out of him. I happen to be in a family full of Trump bootlickers, and every single one of them wants trust-busting back on the menu. They want right to repair. They want click to cancel. That's shit the Democrats should have been howling from the rooftops. But they didn't, because the Democratic Party does not want it. Until the DNC can be proud of what they do for the country, instead of ashamed that they didn't loot it hard enough, they will continue to lose to a coalition of the weirdest weirdos America has to offer. [0] To be clear, in America, "middle class" just means "working class and lying to themselves about it.
watwut 2y ago
No, people who caused this are the ones who picked Trump for candidate and then voted for him. Conservatives did not had to pick Trump and his fellow travelers, they did. It should not be responsibility of democrats to become moderate republicans. It should be responsibility of moderate republicans to moderate their party. If you are moderate republican who voted Trump because you cant stomach the democrat establishment allows transexuals to transition or whatever, then you are someone who knowingly voted someone who you knew will do exactly what is going on now. There is nothing new or shocking about Trump or conservatives being anti-democratic or breaking the law. It is absurd that all the bad stuff conservatives do ends up being blamed on left and center. But somehow, when left do something bad, conservatives are never blamed. > the democrats need to take this as an objective lesson about how badly they failed to represent their constituencies The elections were quite close. They failed to represent moderate republicans who prefer fascists anyway. They lost in elections. But the constituency voting for Trump was not theirs. It would be cool if anti-Trump right would stop blaming everyone but themeselves. Especially when those anti-Trump people voted for Trump second time.
- scarecrowbob 2y ago
  "It would be cool if anti-Trump right would stop blaming everyone but themeselves." I agree, but from where I stand to the left, the Democrats -are- the anti-Trump right. "It should not be responsibility of democrats to become moderate republicans." I also agree with this, and I think that they would have won if they had not tried to be come GOP-Lite. "It would be cool if anti-Trump right would stop blaming everyone but themselves. Especially when those anti-Trump people voted for Trump second time." It'd be cool, from my far-left anti-war, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-capitalist position, if the Democrats would "stop blaming everyone but themselves." Especially when they keep losing because they don't run moderate right-wing candidates who don't represent their constituencies- that's explicitly the reason why they lost, not because a lot of folks voted for DT, but because a big chunk of folks realized that they weren't served by voting for Harris. The Dems didn't have to run Harris. Or they could have setup a platform to appeal to the folks who ultimately didn't trust her. But they didn't do those things and they lost an election they could have won.

ceejayoz 2y ago

I tend to agree. I think the early energy of the Harris campaign was in part because the highly paid centrist consultants hadn't gotten their hooks in yet; there was a notable shift in tone as "these people are fucking weird" disappeared and "we've got Cheney endorsing us!" replaced it. I get, to some extent, why they're gun shy on this; centrism feels like it should be compelling with a crazy person on the other end... but I think the party needs to run an AOC style firebrand soon. Time to at least attempt being a bit leftist for once.

almosthere 2y ago
I mean if you're going to be for "leftism" it might need to be redefined because the reason your side lost (the side I used to be on) is that it went fucking nuts.
roughly 2y ago
The next person to suggest the Dems need to swing right needs to be thrown in a volcano, or at least outed as an obvious fifth columnist. Harris ran so far to the right she was campaigning with Liz Cheney on being tough on immigration, and she lost the election to a geriatric felon autocrat with no coherent plans because Democratic turnout was down. There’s no credible argument for that style of campaign anymore, and anyone suggesting otherwise is either dangerously incompetent or dangerously disingenuous.
kmeisthax 2y ago
"Centrism" is doing a lot of work. I call it "slow fascism", in contrast with the "fast fascism" of Trump. Believe me, while centrists pretend to like rules and procedures, those procedures can rapidly melt away when it's in their interest to. There's a lot of people in the Democratic Party who were personally responsible for, say, selling out the working & middle classes[0]. Hell, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat that jumped ship because the Republican Party is easier to infiltrate. In the middle of the Harris campaign, there was a concerted effort by cryptocurrency whales to primary electorally successful Democrats, purely to send a message: "we will absolutely fuck with you if you don't get in line with us". It was up in the air whether or not Harris would even keep Lina Khan on. The Harris campaign blinked so hard their eyes were stuck shut for the rest of the election. We need an actually progressive party, not just a handful of progressive politicians acting as veneer over the centrist turd that is the DNC. We had that once before with Obama, who was very good at virtue-signalling progress while letting his own party tell him "no" at every juncture. We need to purge the DNC of people who think only about narrowly winning the electoral game so that their machine can perpetuate itself. To be clear, this doesn't mean purity tests. It means doing shit so obviously good and beneficial for everyone that it makes your opponent's rainbow coalition of fascists second-guess why they're brown-nosing a good candidate for the biblical Antichrist just to get one thing out of him. I happen to be in a family full of Trump bootlickers, and every single one of them wants trust-busting back on the menu. They want right to repair. They want click to cancel. That's shit the Democrats should have been howling from the rooftops. But they didn't, because the Democratic Party does not want it. Until the DNC can be proud of what they do for the country, instead of ashamed that they didn't loot it hard enough, they will continue to lose to a coalition of the weirdest weirdos America has to offer. [0] To be clear, in America, "middle class" just means "working class and lying to themselves about it.

watwut 2y ago

No, people who caused this are the ones who picked Trump for candidate and then voted for him. Conservatives did not had to pick Trump and his fellow travelers, they did. It should not be responsibility of democrats to become moderate republicans. It should be responsibility of moderate republicans to moderate their party. If you are moderate republican who voted Trump because you cant stomach the democrat establishment allows transexuals to transition or whatever, then you are someone who knowingly voted someone who you knew will do exactly what is going on now. There is nothing new or shocking about Trump or conservatives being anti-democratic or breaking the law. It is absurd that all the bad stuff conservatives do ends up being blamed on left and center. But somehow, when left do something bad, conservatives are never blamed. > the democrats need to take this as an objective lesson about how badly they failed to represent their constituencies The elections were quite close. They failed to represent moderate republicans who prefer fascists anyway. They lost in elections. But the constituency voting for Trump was not theirs. It would be cool if anti-Trump right would stop blaming everyone but themeselves. Especially when those anti-Trump people voted for Trump second time.

scarecrowbob 2y ago
"It would be cool if anti-Trump right would stop blaming everyone but themeselves." I agree, but from where I stand to the left, the Democrats -are- the anti-Trump right. "It should not be responsibility of democrats to become moderate republicans." I also agree with this, and I think that they would have won if they had not tried to be come GOP-Lite. "It would be cool if anti-Trump right would stop blaming everyone but themselves. Especially when those anti-Trump people voted for Trump second time." It'd be cool, from my far-left anti-war, pro-LGBTQ+, anti-capitalist position, if the Democrats would "stop blaming everyone but themselves." Especially when they keep losing because they don't run moderate right-wing candidates who don't represent their constituencies- that's explicitly the reason why they lost, not because a lot of folks voted for DT, but because a big chunk of folks realized that they weren't served by voting for Harris. The Dems didn't have to run Harris. Or they could have setup a platform to appeal to the folks who ultimately didn't trust her. But they didn't do those things and they lost an election they could have won.