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Bernie tried twice, Democrats demonstrated their ability to stop that shit in its tracks. It will not work.
The only solution is for progressives to abandon the Party and start their own to replace it. The US has replaced parties before, it can be done again.
The Democrat establishment wants power and for that they have to win elections. So having an anti establishment candidate is preferable to them over a Republicans victory. If anything good came out of the last election, it is that Trump as horrible as he is can still win elections against an establishment Democrat, so the Democrats have to change.
Also changing the parties does not work. The problem is systematic and the US really needs to change its election system, to get better politics.
They sure didn't look like they wanted to win this election.
They switch candidates in the middle of the campaign, because Biden's polling was that bad.
And then Harris did everything she could to reassure everyone she was exactly like Biden, completely defeating the strategy.
Trump tried once and it worked. Neoliberal ideas are entrenched in the minds of Americans. Neoliberalism only allows change to the people in charge of systems as it asserts, incorrectly, that our institutions are flawless. Since neoliberals only consider changing people, it is much easier for a fascist to convince a neoliberal to change the people in society. Where as it is much harder for a progressive or a socialist to convince a neoliberal to enact systemic change or redistribute wealth respectively.
In short, people with neoliberal ideas in their head need to fully internalize neoliberalism as a scam.
Abandoning the Democrats will not result in them being replaced. They will continue to exist by moving further to the right, as Democrats like Chris Murphy have already proposed.
Starting a successful third party is mathematically impossible under a FPTP system. Third party candidates can only be spoiler candidates.
Where's the Whig Party?
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/18581056/11578151
The Democrats are divided over Israel. Something like 80 House members boycotted Netanyahu's speech, and the Party base is overwhelmingly anti-genocide. That's enough to get the ball rolling.
It's not enough. The House elections happen every two years. AIPAC can successfully primary progressive politicians if we don't vote for them.
https://apnews.com/article/squad-aipac-progressives-congress-cori-bush-0de0a96929368db72145b033261415ca
Murphy spells it out. Democrats are moving to the right to get people who aren't 100% with them on social and cultural issues. There is a huge base of people in the US that support Israel. And they tend to be consistent older voters.
https://apnews.com/article/squad-aipac-progressives-congress-cori-bush-0de0a96929368db72145b033261415ca
https://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/aging/articles/why-older-citizens-are-more-likely-to-vote
Democrats moving to the right are only going to lose more and more voters, because the only reason people vote for them is because they aren't as far to the right as Republicans. It sure looks like moving to the right cost Harris the election, they're destroying their only appeal.
And those voters that they lose will be looking for a new party, because they won't let themselves be dragged to the right. So while the Democrats destroy their own party it makes perfect sense for progressives to abandon ship and reform into a new party to replace them.
This is all academic, of course. In reality we might not be able to vote ever again lol
It will definitely lose them progressive votes. And it probably won't gain them many conservative votes. But the Democrats are still going to try anyway. They look at who voted and chase those people's votes. edit: typo
Most of the country wants a new party, but our FPTP system mathematically guarantees they will never get it.
=/
Yeah, Democrats look at losing millions of voters and assume it was because they were woke. Can't wait for Democrats to start campaigning on taking my hormones away to win over conservatives!
We're fucked 🙃
The issue now is that the Democrats might not have to. They can refuse to help give them back and instead advance things one step forward by funding more research, when it's a well understood concept. Or maybe give queer people a federal holiday.
Yes. But we can get more fucked. =(
Third party doesn’t work. You have to do what trump did, 1 man coup from the inside.
Apparently Republican voters are gonna set the mark at R regardless of who it is, so how about having someone like Bernie run in the Republican primary.
It didn't work with Bernie for more reasons than the parties resistance. A lot of people on the left that dislike the party don't seem to understand that you still have to join the party and get involved with it if you want the party to move left. Party members and active involved people shape where the party goes. We absolutely can shift the Dems left, but it means holding our noses and becoming the party. The Dems have always been an open door, big tent, party. Walk into the tent and change minds...
The Dems didn't let a single Palestinian-American speak at the DNC this year. The tent is big enough for Cheney, not us.
Yeah, the Dems are made up of scared moderates, because the left has completely abandoned politics and conceded all their power. If you want the party to move left, become the party. It really isn't mystical or complicated, power goes to those that take it. The left would rather stand on the outside looking in be cause at least they can complain and blame everyone else but themselves.
What the hell are you talking about?
They rat fucked Bernie out of the race in 2020 because they would rather lose than let a socialist become the nominee, and though they managed to win in 2020 because of COVID they failed to sustain that support and lost the popular vote. This was the direct result of the DNC rejecting their left portion of their base, because they're the ones would rather critique power than take it.
And now that Trump is in he's going to make sure Democrats never win again. Are you going to join the Republicans and try to move them to the Left? 🙄
The only means of obtaining power now is mass struggle. Your vote won't count for shit ever again, if you're even allowed to vote. Get with the program.
Bernie could have easily been the nominee, if people actually showed up and voted for him more than Hillary. I'm not shocked or bothered that a party protected their own. Bernie came from the outside as an independent and tried to take the nomination. And he could have the same way trump did to the right. I was all for it and supported him as well, but either way he didn't get the votes he needed. Why? Why didn't his mass of supporters show up in large enough numbers either time? Because the far left doesn't do the work, they never have in my lifetime. While I'm pretty far left, I don't identify with most of you because your all lazy fucking cowards. Your primary position is giving up and bending over and taking it. Politics is work, if you're unwilling to do the work then for the love, stop fucking whining, your constant inaction built this. Own it, move forward, and fucking do something for once.
Trump was allowed to do what he did to the Republicans because he is not a threat to anyone in power. That's a very obviously different situation than a socialist, who is very much a threat and needed to be dealt with. They are not the same.
Democrats would rather lose than work with their left. Republicans are happy to work with their right, and that's why they win.
Besides which, elections are over. If you're so fucking smart and active and ready to do the work then you need to seriously prepare for when elections are either canceled or so hopelessly rigged that Democrats never win again. Maybe the left could have won with a more organized electoral strategy in 2016 or 2020, but that's in the past! Here and now, we're staring down the barrel of the end of elections. Instead of punching left, you're going to have to march with us or you'll hang with us.
Complete revisionist history. Before Trump got the nomination the first time, the Republicans did everything they could to prop up any other candidate but him. They worked far harder to stop Trump than the Dems ever did to stop Bernie. When Bernie ran his first time he won a majority of the early caucuses, a system that heavily favors party insiders. Aside from a handful of people at the top, Bernie was well loved in the party, but he failed to get votes.
The might be the biggest lie I've heard in years. The Dems have been willing to work with the left for my entire lifetime. It's the lefts "my way or the highway" mentality towards politics that makes it impossible. Parties have to be able to garner over 50% support to win elections and win issues. The right wing has had an everything and the kitchen sink mentality towards politics for years, they will appease the far right and the moderate right and both show up. When the left tries to do the same the far left goes "you're only doing 80% of what I wanted, that's evil, you have to do everything I wanted because my viewpoint is the only correct one!".
Yes, I do plan to do the work, because I'm not a lazy braindead idiot. The country is not lost yet, we still have to fight. And if it does fall, we still fight. That's what people who aren't caught up in their moral purity do, they look at the situation and make the best decision available to them. The reason you whine so much is because it's so much easier than actually putting in effort. The world has always been a difficult place filled with selfish people, the only thing preventing disaster is good people taking action, be one of the good ones and do something, anything, to improve the world.
They didn't do everything they could to stop Trump, Democrats showed there was one step further they could take: have everyone drop out and endorse a single candidate. Republicans also didn't rig any of their primaries, and I'm pretty fucking sure Democrats did n Iowa (and as someone from Iowa I'm still mad about how they basically just sacrificed our state)
You talk a lot of shit. Did you even volunteer for Harris? Do any canvasing? Door knocking? Phonebanking? How much did you donate? My guess: you did literally nothing.
I've given thousands of hours of my life to politics and activism throughout my life, and intend to continue to. I don't have to justify any of it to your brain rot.
Maybe that's true!
Out of all the people that voted for Harris, how many of them do you think actually volunteered any time at all to her campaign? I'd guess it wasn't even 0.1%.
What you're accusing the US left of, of being armchair whiners, applies to nearly all USAmericans. People in this country believe politics is just complaining and voting every couple years, and this is true of Democrats and Republicans and Independents. The actual political engagement in the US is extremely low and it's a serious problem.
I'll choose to believe you, but you should realize you're a rarity in the US. Half of us don't even vote!
I agree, voting is the bare minimum, if people are so frustrated, it should drive them to action. Democracy is an imperfect system, but it only truly works if people are actively engaged with it. If we don't start taking it seriously, we certainly won't have it much longer, if not Trump someone after him will strip it from us.
At the end of the day, I don't really care as much about the rift in the Dem party, as much as I care about the inaction on the left. If the left truly engaged with the process, in whatever way they choose, the path will open up for at least some reconciliation in both directions. The real problem is the inaction on the left, imo. The fatalism and despair that leads to lethargy. We need true activism beyond just protesting, such as citizen lobbying, getting involved in local community, joining affinity groups that have legislative goals, etc. All of that stuff forces the party to take notice, and it works. I've been involved in many things in my life that resulted in passed left wing legislation, it starts with people choosing to try to make a difference.
Okay, so let's look at the genocide in Gaza.
What could the left have done, more than they already had? There was the whole uncommitted movement of direct involvement in the primary process to make our voices heard, people demanded to speak to nominees and presented petitions and went to the media etc etc. That wasn't fatalism, people did everything they could imagine and I don't appreciate you shitting on them for it.
But what did the Party do in response?
They didn't allow a single Palestinian-American to speak at the DNC!
So tell me, since you're so good at politics and so incredibly motivated and smart, can you think of anything that they could have done to force the Democratic Party to adopt a resolution banning arms sales to Israel? Because I can't.
There are all sorts of things that could have been done, but I'm not sure whether it would have moved the needle enough. You can't just show up in the bottom of the 9th and say. "I've rarely hit for your team, but if you don't do what I say I won't hit a home run for you." That's one of the things I've been trying to communicate, all be it grumpily.
The left needs to integrate themselves into the party and into activism permanently. Yes we will be working with people with whom we profoundly disagree on some issues. But we will also agree on many things, and that will create progress. That progress will leave room for negotiation and firm resolution. When you're already sitting at the table and already part of the team, then you have the power to make change. Especially because the left is large enough and passionate enough to completely overrun the party like the Trumpists did with the right. Instead the left repeatedly does the one thing that will always result in nothing, they refuse to participate.
Its not really about just voting. Though when 10 million people stay home just because they don't like the top of the ticket, it's definitely silly. Those down ballot races are filled with progressives and further left candidates that the left could actually be supporting.
They see abstention and protest as action. Protesting and refusing to participate is cathartic, but it has little to no impact on policy. We need to actually get organized and flex our power... Even if it is somewhat adjacent to the party, if millions of far left Americans truly organize and show they can work as a team, the Dems will be forced to bend towards us. The Dems consistently work with organized people. People that are organized are massive blocks of power with the ability to truly mobilize, It's why the Dems have often been so integrated into labor unions.
I also think the issue with Israel includes hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign pressure against anyone who "falls out of line" from Christian and Jewish political action groups that support Israel. There needs to be far more organizing on the left to counteract that, we've done maybe 15% of what needs to be done if we really want to tip that scale. I have no faith in the left to really do that work. So people won't do the work, and won't vote... But won't see how they are a part of the problem.
You have a lot of faith in voting.
So, what's your plan now that we might not have real elections ever again?
I'm not a fortuneteller, depending on the route things take I'll join whatever group(s) are fighting to save democracy and go from there. But aside from that I'll focus on organizing for small wins, multi use zoning, local transit, shared use trails, etc. Things that improve the lives around you lead to positive impacts politically. I'm most interested in just moving forward in the ways that I can. No one needs to take a large bite, just getting involved leads to positive impacts. People who get involved also don't tend to feel so helpless when they see how possible it is to get bills passed and good projects funded, that usually leads to a positive outcome. If things go to shit anyway, at least I'll have done something and tried.
I'm sure I'll really appreciate the new shared use trail in my community after they take away my hormones.
You realize some of us are going to die, right? I'm trying to be patient here, but you don't seem to realize the stakes. People need to take large bites or we aren't going to make it. Doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff is not a political action plan. This is going to take a political organization bigger than each of us individually, something that can do more than pass a local sales tax for road repairs or a new community pool. It's not enough to have done something and tried. We have to win.
And that's not going to be Democrats. They are tied to the sinking ship of elections, and they will keep wasting their time in them long after Republicans have rigged everything and made winning impossible. Sure, you can get some small wins that way, like shared trails, but the big stuff? Like my access to healthcare? That's off limits. Republicans will kill me if I play by the rules of the game.
We have a couple months to prepare. That's it. After that? Anything can happen.
I think you've misread me. It's not like I'm oblivious to the danger we all face, that's exactly why the inaction of the left makes me irritated. I also admittedly led with a softer touch in regards to organizing in my last comment because I had no idea if going overboard would just shutdown the conversation. While I live a fairly heteronormative life, I'm queer, so is my wife, and so are a large chunk of the people I surround myself with. I brought up zoning and infrastructure because I have a lot of knowledge when it comes to those topics so my effort isn't wasted. Densifying is an environmental imperative. The spread out nature of our infrastructure is the single greatest threat to human survival because the vast majority of our fossil fuels goes to supporting it.
There is a reason I said I'm not a fortuneteller, we really don't know how far Trump and Co will take it, and we will all have to be open to pivoting depending on what he does. The single greatest thing people can do is get involved in literally anything. Because once people understand how to navigate activism and politics, it becomes that much easier to pivot when things get bad. Many people on the left have to still take the first step, literally just getting off the couch and used to organizing. I've been encouraging that on lemmy and reddit specifically because people need to start somewhere. It's been my experience that the people most angry on here, the people that refused to vote, etc, are also the people that never get involved in real activism past protests. I really just want people to engage, now, while there is still time...
I tried to run for a small local position with the DNC using one of their arms that is for "funding and supporting small progressives" well that first bit is a lie. First question they asked me was how much money I had and if I had rich family to fund my campaign.
I told them not really but I would rather talk policy and maybe alternatives to spending money and they told me to pretend to be religious to find a good church to get donations from cause there are some rich churches.
I told them I was a Buddhist and happy for it, and they suggested I either find some other wealthy Buddhists cause they were sure I should be able to find some or maybe I should consider not running at all and just donating to this group or volunteering for free to them.
This will take acceptance and support from the people that run the party and all the wealthy party owners that view themselves better than working class because of their connections and wealth.
I've worked for the party and even helped recruit candidates. Some of what you're writing here seems very inconsistent with how we did things at least in Minnesota and Wisconsin. No one would ever address religion or social class at all here. And funding your own campaign is usually a fools errand, because raising money helps people become invested in your campaign.
But candidates are still expected to fundraise in some way shape or form. You can't be a viable candidate in today's world without money. Until elections are publicly funded and banned from raising their own money, money will always be necessary. The ability to fundraise also proves viability, people that raise money show people are quite literally invested in your campaign, making them statistically likely to vote and more likely to volunteer for 'get out the vote' efforts.
I understand all that but instead of starting with ways to start naturally and get your name out there it was directly to money. No, conversation on anything else. Just a dollar threshold for us to hit or get out of their hair.
This was with the "run for something" group while in Florida. But there was definitely people from other states and they were all equally disturbed at the immediate grilling for us to fund ourselves and to be in a major religion.
I do get that it seems ass backwards and incompatible with how a person would actually run for a local position and it's why a lot of people have become disenfranchised by the whole system and party.
It's like the state has deep pride in their idiocy.
Oh sure. And I left but the group I worked with is national and as they brag the largest entry point for new candidates and they weren't the state.
Florida just ends up an easy excuse to ignore that it's millions of people experiencing situations closer to mine.
It's not like Florida was a swing state or anything with a huge population and economy.
Do you mind me asking, what was the group recruiting?