Vincent Oriedo, a biotechnology scientist, had just such a question. What lessons have been learned, he asked, from Harris’s defeat in this vital swing county in a crucial battleground state that voted for Joe Biden four years ago, and how are the Democrats applying them?
“They did not answer the question,” he said.
“It tells me that they haven’t learned the lessons and they have their inner state of denial. I’ve been paying careful attention to the influencers within the Democratic party. Their discussions have centred around, ‘If only we messaged better, if only we had a better candidate, if only we did all these superficial things.’ There is really a lack of understanding that they are losing their base, losing constituencies they are taking for granted.”
“We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests. They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs.”
While that’s true, choosing to vote for Trump, a third-party, or not at all is like saying, “I don’t like this ham sandwich and I don’t like my sandwich choices… so I’m going to eat this dog-turds-and-radioactive-glass-shards sandwich instead!”
This country is fucked.
Edit: Rather than respond below to every comment, thought I’d clarify a few things here.
- I never said Democrats didn’t fuck up. They certainly did.
- But - and this is important - we can’t ignore the roles that racism, sexism, and above all misinformation played. To pretend there was none, and that vast swaths of the electorate didn’t fall for it, would be disingenuous.
Democrats have moved to the right, and hurt themselves doing so. That is true. But they are still objectively superior to Republicans in every conceivable way. People who voted Republican voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party because they were angry about Democrats being imperfect, and their faces will be eaten.
If only someone, or a group of like minded thinkers, had predicted this exact social course and offered another course that actually has ideological solutions for capital interests fucking over everything in their quest for more money and power!
I think a lot of the core of the Kamala base is just as out of touch as the Democratic establishment. The fact that the establishment can’t understand this outcome just demonstrates their ineptitude.
People are hurting, a lot. Real wage growth has been stagnant, people are having trouble making ends meet, the wealthy are richer than ever leaving the working class with less and less.
What do the Democrats do to actually improve peoples material conditions? Absolutely nothing. The CHIPS act and IRA are great for longer term problems, but does nothing to put more food on people table. Kamala had the gall to ignore the problem all together. The economy is great, look at the stock market! And her big economic plan? Tax breaks for small businesses and your first home purchase. That’s it. That’s their fucking cornerstone economic policy. That’s not gonna help the vast majority of people.
Then on the other hand you have trump. He tells everyone it’s the brown peoples fault everything sucks, so we will get rid of them (and, by implication, your problems). It’s their fault egg prices are high, just get rid of them and things will go back to the way things were. Of course the rich are the real problem, not immigrants or trans people or any other conservative boogie man, but Trump acknowledged the pain many working class Americans are under.
Now you can think to yourself, how would anyone believe that? Think about someone who’s working two jobs to make ends meet, they’re surrounded by Fox news, all their family is Republican. They were raised in the public education system (half the country can’t read at a 6th grade level) and can’t parse the details of domestic economic policy, but Trump says it’s the brown peoples fault. Finally they felt seen and acknowledged. They remember the Trump stimulus checks. They remember the tax break (even if it’s temporary, they won’t look too closely and notice it’s permeant for the rich).
You know how Democrats win? By bringing back the party of FDR and really championing the working class. Thanks to citizens united we will never see that again, but it’s quite easy to understand their loss against trump. There’s only one issue, and thats class conflict. Until the Democrats stop serving their corporate donors they will never win again as it’s too easy for Republicans to acknowledge working class pain and scapegoat marginalized people.
You know how Democrats win? By bringing back the party of FDR
At this point, I’d expect them to bring back Japanese internment camps and nothing else. I’d say redlining too, but that would involve having a housing program to be discriminatory with.
Wouldn’t surprise me either. Just understand that my point wasn’t that we should go back to the regressive social ideas of that era, but more so that we should return to supporting/expanding the welfare state at the expense of reducing the wealth of billionaires.
Just understand that my point wasn’t that we should go back to the regressive social ideas of that era, but more so that we should return to supporting/expanding the welfare state at the expense of reducing the wealth of billionaires.
Absolutely. I just can’t trust Democrats to do it anymore.
Because the Democrats jave just been a controlled opposition party since Regan.
Redlining was mainly a private-sector thing involving loan availability and insurance premiums. It wasn’t primarily to do with housing programs.
Redlining was an official policy of the Federal Housing Authority under Homer Hoyt.
Not reading all that. I’m apart of Kamala’s base of 75 million. I guess I’m out of touch and super wealthy according to you.
The fact that you so proudly claimed to not want to read yet decided to respond anyway makes you pretty out of touch. That last bit is just icing on the cake since they never claimed that.
You’re certainly out of touch if you won’t even read the explanation as to why you lost.
But I expect little else from the Khive.
Cry more
k then I’m not ready any of yours past “Im not reading all that”. Or any of your other comments either.
Too bad RCV is moving so slowly
Oh man that would be incredible. I’d actually be vaguely satisfied with my choices on the ballot.
Can’t imagine why politicians would be hesitant to mess with a system that put them in power.
RCV was on like 5 ballots last election and failed in each one. The VOTERS didn’t want it.
Neither centrists nor republicans want RCV, yeah. Republicans might lose and centrists might lose the ability to run as second worst to republicans.
In Nevada they tied RCV to independents being able to vote in primaries, instead of being its own bill. The carrot and stick approach upset a lot of people, including me.
Democrats have moved to the right, and hurt themselves doing so. That is true. But they are still objectively superior to Republicans in every conceivable way. People who voted Republican voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party because they were angry about Democrats being imperfect, and their faces will be eaten.
The problem you (people blaming voters) don’t seem to understand is, the Democrats moving right DIRECTLY demotivated voters and they stayed home because they were going to get right wing policy either way. They literally had no choice in multiple different avenues of how the country would be run so they said “fuck it if I got no choice for x y AND z, why vote?” maybe they still had a choice for a-w but maybe those specific policies didn’t matter to them personally and wouldn’t have affected their life.
This is A) the problem with having a shitty party platform and B) the problem with hyper-individualism that our country loves.
See, this is where you’re wrong. By every measure, the Democratic party platform was objectively better for humans living on planet Earth. Its problems were in degree (not being nearly progressive enough), not in focus (such as screaming incoherently about trans people).
But people didn’t know, because of the aforementioned misinformation and disinformation. Seriously, did you know that the party platform contains an entire section on protecting LGBTQI+ people and rights? Most progressive voters who sat this one out never read it. Here, see for yourself.
But because the Democratic party wasn’t progressive enough (in some people’s eyes), they sat out the election, and someone who is a thousand times worse in every respect is going to be president tomorrow.
I take that personally. I have a trans son and a gay daughter, and their lives will be so much worse, starting tomorrow. And to protect them, I’m actively trying to figure out how to leave this country, because a lot of people didn’t care enough to protect my kids.
In 1930’s Germany, the Jewish people (and Gypsies, and - again - gay and trans people, and so on) who survived when that country descended into fascism are the ones who got the fuck out first. That is the reality that this purity bullshit has created for people like my kids.
If the electorate doesn’t know a party’s platform, that’s the party’s problem. It’s literally their job to scream it from the rooftops.
And all I saw was democrats, like motherfucking Henry Cuellar, throwing the LGBTQ under the bus. Especially trans people.
If the electorate doesn’t know a party’s platform, that’s the party’s problem. It’s literally their job to scream it from the rooftops.
They did. Harris campaigned constantly, and contrary to the constant and incessant media narrative, she went into plenty of specifics.
It was all drowned out by Trump noise, and the media was 100% complicit.
And all I saw was democrats, like motherfucking Henry Cuellar, throwing the LGBTQ under the bus. Especially trans people.
Yes, Cuellar is an asshole, no argument there. But he was by no means the only Democrat on the campaign trail. Again, the media wouldn’t fucking give Democrats the time of day, because the 24-hour Trump clown show got the ratings.
We also shouldn’t dismiss the problem of sexism, some of it internalized. Back in 2008, I had the misfortune of meeting a woman who wasn’t sure who to vote for. She wanted to vote for McCain at the time, but was hesitant because she didn’t want a woman to be vice-president. (The fact that Sarah Palin was immensely unqualified didn’t matter, but the fact she had a vagina did.) That attitude is still a lot more common than people who live in largely progressive areas realize.
not in focus (such as screaming incoherently about trans people)
why is “trans people” always the example the centrists bring up, like its some sort of totem. Trans peoples rights are not exactly on very many peoples top 10 list of concerns, and I doubt many people could even name the rights trans people are fighting for and dems are supposedly helping with. Trans people are 1% of the population. If thats all we have for a convincing argument we’re doing politics wrong.
Bite me. I’m no fucking centrist. And maybe if you’d actually read my comment, you’d understand why trans issues are important enough for me to mention.
Edit: In light of this instant and predictable attack on my kids, I cordially invite anyone who is okay with Trump in office to “teach Democrats a lesson” to fuck themselves sideways with a pineapple.
Doesn’t matter anymore. I was gonna type “but genocide Joe” every time trump fucks over in some way the people who had a chance to vote for Kamala. But in the end, unity is far more important, division is how putin disarticulated his opposition.
I was gonna type “but genocide Joe” every time trump fucks over in some way the people who had a chance to vote for Kamala.
That would be a great demonstration that you have learned nothing.
I learned that Joe should have dropped out earlier and allowed proper primaries. You will miss “genocide joe” ;)
I learned that Joe should have dropped out earlier and allowed proper primaries.
Then type that instead.
Doesn’t matter, you’ll be lucky to vote again.
DISINFORMATION, not misinformation.
You’re missing the lesson too, ironically.
The voters didn’t like what the Democrats were offering them, they wanted change, and they wanted it badly enough that they went ahead and ate that dog-turd-and-glass-sandwich.
You’re saying “they shouldn’t have eaten that, the sandwich the Democrats were offering was better.” Okay, well, they did it anyway. So you’re wrong. The Democrats were wrong. They’ve been wrong multiple times now. They’re doing the “Am I so out of touch? No. It’s the voters who are wrong.” Meme.
America’s a democracy. The voters aren’t wrong, as much as you might personally disagree with their choice. If you want a different government you have to offer them one that they’ll vote for. That may require some compromises, but that’s part of democracy.
I hope that they get it this time. This is the second time in recent memory that they’ve made this mistake. Even Biden’s election was closer than it should have been. I really hope that the DNC gets its head out of its ass and cleans house, but articles like this are disheartening.
My concern with statements like this is that I don’t think your considering the impact that misinformation had on this election.
There were massive disinformation campaigns that had sizable effects on the dialogue that people had with their friends and neighbors. I’m worried that we could have actually put someone like Bernie as our nominee and that we still would have lost because of exactly this misinformation.
The Democrat message wasn’t making it to people and I think that it really shows…
The Democrats message was literally “The Cheney’s like us!” and “ithe economy is fine, the GDP has never been higher!” while everyone’s lives are objectivly worse than they were 2 years ago. What messge do you think people wanted to here?
If you want to be completely reductionist, then sure. They were trying to show that Trump was so upsetting that people were crossing party lines to vote Democrat…not that Democrats have becomes so centrist that they attracted right-wingers. And the economy has been great, they’re not wrong. The Democrat platform was also fantastic: $6k child tax credit, $25k first time home buyer assistance, tax reforms replacing the corporate tax rate to 28%< and taxing the rich, capping medication costs, union support, pushing reproductive rights, climate action, immigration reform. They had a STRONG platform.
…but that wasn’t good enough. So they elected the billionaire conman that is putting up his billionaire cronies. That’s going to help the economy. Like…could the Democrat message have been better? Sure, but it wasn’t bad by any means.
But how are you supposed to argue with someone who doesn’t operate on facts?
Trump didn’t have many more voters this time around than 4 years ago. Democrats didn’t go out to vote because they don’t believe the in the message the DNC has been putting out for the last 8 years. I don’t know what it will take to get you to understand that. All those policies are shit the Republicans would have pushed for 20 years ago. People don’t want tax credits dor their children, they want access to healthcare and and affordable child care. They don’t want tax credits for first time home buyers, they want landlords tarred and feathered on the courthouse steps. People can’t afford their rent and food anymore but the DNC are so far up their own ass they can’t see that.
I live in a deep blue state. Family is all very blue. They have learned absolutely nothing. They all think what the Democrats did was perfect. Kamala was flawless. She didn’t get elected because America is racist AND sexist.
They genuinely believe that there was nothing they could have done to improve.
I think they are gonna have to learn this lesson a few more times before they pull their heads outta their ass finally. I hope.
She didn’t get elected because America is racist AND sexist.
This talking point is just so Democrats have an excuse to keep AOC out of the 2028 race in favor of some centrist turd barge.
What has AOC done that Kamala hasn’t?
What has AOC done that Kamala hasn’t?
Give a coherent speech. Talk about policy poistions. Pave her own way instead of riding on someone elses coattails. Have some basic principles and humanity. Have a staff that doesnt talk to the press about what a tyrant she is. Fight for whats right instead of what will bring in bribes.
The two couldnt be more different.
Have positions to Biden’s left.
Her fascist border plan, embrace of genocide, and her running mate Liz Cheney were all great in their opinion? Wow. I need to talk to some Dems sometime.
I need to talk to some Dems sometime.
.world is here 24/7.
It won’t happen. Every election in the last 25 years, including midterms, where the democrats tried to play to “moderate republicans”, they got wiped out.
and they keep trying to dislodge “sane” republicans because they’d rather maintain centralized power than risk a grass roots movement distributing power to the masses. dyed in the wool democrats prefer fascism to meaningful reform
Obama was amazingly effective at the ballot box, but to the established Democratic power structure he was dangerous. Luckily for them he merged himself into their structure rather than maintaining his separate power base and taking on individual in-party resistors like Trump has, but it was a warning about what could happen and they took that lesson to heart. They do not want anything resembling another Obama.
So if Dems are never left enough for you. Wouldn’t that mean they’re moderate. Which means they won in 06, 08, 12, 18, 20 and 22 being “moderate”.
They won in 2020 on the wake of protests and low-information voters who thought they’d be freeing the immigrant camps, defunding the police, codifying roe, and getting free healthcare.
They got wiped out in 22 by being moderate and getting fuckall done by trying to compromise with republicans for 2 years.
In 06 and 08, they were finally coming about against the Iraq war and promising things, unlike in 2004 where they simply said they would do the war more competently.
People want real fucking change. One man stood up against a massive evil health insurance company and regular people from all sides of the political spectrum support him.
Dems could have won if they were willing to do the same and no one would even need to be hurt to do it.
Naturally, there are a host of other problems mentioned in this thread. The trouble is that there is too much free $peech from the ruling class in politics.
I think for people like me, the biggest fuck you was from Obama. He ran on hope and change. He ran on at least a public option. And he went into the office and literally shut down the ground operation that swept him into his position and then basically spent 8 years appeasing Republicans despite the fact that people wanted transformational change. That’s why they picked him over Clinton. He delivered Romneycare, bank bailouts, and drone wars.
And when people wonder why it’s so hard to get out the vote, I think this is a key reason why. I’m old enough to have gone to Obama’s rallies, knock on doors for his campaign as a volunteer, vote for him and watch with joy as he won.
Hope and change. After the George W Bush presidency and the war on terror, it finally seemed like it was time for the pendulum to swing back.
And then every issue they came to the table with a position already in the center in hopes of appealing to the republicans who would then hold their breath and kick their feet and then it would slide further and further to the right until they were holding up romneycare as a progressive victory while also getting completely destroyed in the court of public opinion for passing romneycare.
I knew a lot of people that were very excited for Obama the candidate and completely disillusioned by Obama the president.
And I await the apologists to come out and tell me how he had to do it this way, they only had a super majority for a few weeks. Sure if the republicans have the slimmest majority they rewrite the tax codes and give away trillions to the wealthiest, and if they are in the minority they still somehow get their policies passed. But when democrats have power, well you see, government takes time. They can’t possibly just have the bill ready and call for a vote, you see, that’s just not how it works.
You can only tell people so many times. Vote blue and we promise this time, this time, we will make it better. I know last time we didn’t, but it was because of the blue dogs, or Joe Lieberman, or Joe Manchin. Sure, we have no plan to get rid of those people or other spoilers and we will doggedly support them in every primary… but somehow this time will be different.
And I await the apologists to come out and tell me how he had to do it this way, they only had a super majority for a few weeks. Sure if the republicans have the slimmest majority they rewrite the tax codes and give away trillions to the wealthiest, and if they are in the minority they still somehow get their policies passed. But when democrats have power, well you see, government takes time. They can’t possibly just have the bill ready and call for a vote, you see, that’s just not how it works.
Every single time!
I still find it frustrating to hear this line every single time. Like somehow every single member of congress during that time was hyper focused on the ACA bill, couldn’t have pushed for their own legislation to be pushed forward.
I’ve had plenty of wake up calls, and every time I do, someone calls me weird for the dog whistles becoming fog horns.
And I await the apologists to come out and tell me how he had to do it this way, they only had a super majority for a few weeks.
They will all be miraculously absent when Republicans change the senate rules to get rid of the filibuster.
I honestly wonder if at this point, candidates would be better off pursuing progressive legislation by running a Republicans.
Ideological purity doesn’t matter worth a shit to Republicans. See Republican voters loving the ACA while hating Obamacare. The party that is supposedly pro free market now openly endorses tariffs and regulation on business to advance a host of culture war bugbears. Republicans are not libertarians; the base especially isn’t ideologically opposed to government programs.
I could see a progressive running for the Republican nomination, a latter-day Teddy Roosevelt. And since the Republicans have become the party of the working class, while Democrats are the party of lawyers and big business, the attack lines write themselves. “Democrats are in bed with the insurance industry!” “Democrats want to pick your pocket instead of giving you healthcare!” “Democrats can’t pass a health plan without lining the pockets of their donors!”
The Republican party has proven itself to be much more susceptible to disruption from outside charismatic figures. The Republican base has far more control over the Republican party than the Democratic base does of the Democratic party. In 2016, the establishment Republicans tried to shoot Trump down, but their base overpowered them, and Trump took over the party. Bernie tried the same thing in 2016 and 2020, but the DNC was far more powerful and able to resist this outside takeover.
I really think that now may be the time for a return of progressive Republicans in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt. Promise to fix healthcare and break up big businesses left and right. Throw a bone to the right by promising to exclude illegal immigrants from the healthcare law (which they would never be eligible for anyway.) Hell, you could even write it so it didn’t exclude coverage for abortion and trans healthcare. If someone points that out, just lie and say that your plan does include these exclusions. It’s not like the truth on such things matters anymore. Sell it in simple terms the common man can understand.
I really do wonder if at this point, progressive candidates might gain more traction by running as Republicans. The Republican party is not ideologically libertarian, and it has proven far more receptive to outsiders and new ideas than the Democratic party.
I remember watching the debates during the Obama campaign and thinking “this guy is just as pro big business as the republicans”. The only candidate who was talking about the need to limit the political power of corporations/finance was Ron Paul.
Bernie to Trump pipeline
Actually the other way around. Ron Paul to Bernie pipeline. I was reading Corey Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig at the time and I was willing to vote for anyone who might limit corporate power/corporate funding of political campaigns. I will never understand why so many people were excited for Obama. He just always seemed like your standard change nothing and let the rich get richer polititian to me. Although, I will admit he is a very charismatic speaker.
Kamala was running on “Isn’t Trump a weirdo?”, but that was working so she stopped.
The DNC does not want to win if it means causing actual change.
They pivoted from “Trump is a weirdo” to “Dick Cheney likes us!” like the absolute morons they are.
I love how “We were too woke!”, and I"m like “Woke? Is that what you call having Thanksgiving with Penis Cheney?”
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and drone wars
I’d have been fine with the US killing even more Al-Qaida and Taliban members, even those that happened to be US citizens fighting alongside their comrades in a combat zone. Every single one of them would be about right. And if you’re squeamish about drones, let’s be real, you are really just squeamish about warfare, because every other form of killing in warfare is just as brutal and most are far more indiscriminate.
Also, as soon as Trump got in the first time, he changed rules of engagement to take less account of civilian casualties.
iirc technically Obama reduced counting of drone strike civillian casualties, Trump just stopped counting all together.
Y’all stay on Obama’s dick.
Maybe you didn’t read that comment? I think you got it backwards.
They want us to think real change is impossible.
People want real fucking change.
So they helped to elect Trump for a non-consecutive term lol
Trump pretty much won on optics alone and positioning himself once again as looking out for people despite not being true at all. Dems didn’t want to address people’s issues with the economy and did the weird thing of tap dancing for right Dick Cheney voters who don’t exist.
Just stand for something, even if the risk of loss is high. It pays off in the end.
Every breakdown and postmortem i see make it pretty clear:
If you paid close attention and were well-informed, you voted for Kamala.
If you believe things aren’t true or didn’t pay close attention, you voted for Trump as a sort of totem for wealth and success, not because of a specific policy of his you like. He just represents making lots of money to you.
Any grappling with what went wrong or improvements needed within the DNC first needs to reckon with the reality that people aren’t seeing left-wing messaging and are instead exposed to a fake version of leftism pushed constantly by right-wing actors on social media.
We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests
Evergreen quote-
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
Honestly I think this article is completely wrong. I’m convinced modern elections are 100% based on vibes and so better messaging and a better candidate would have meant a great deal.
But to add to that - Trump and his idiot base had been messaging and memeing for four years starting with Covid and masks and then inflation and ‘I did that’ stickers of Biden at the gas pump. Biden had barely done any messaging even up until the point he dropped out which, in the social media era, should be obviously big fucking warning signs of a losing campaign.
EDIT - which is not to say I don’t think the Dems need to change in other ways because they absolutely do.
Seriously those gas station “I did that” stickers were an actual grass roots movement, and it’s part of why Trump won.
A lot of people vote based on their wallets. If you’re worse off after 4 years, then why vote for the incumbent?
The Dems need to learn. Cheap food/gas/essentials, less outsourcing, less importing cheap labor, and lose the smugness. That’s what they need to do to win, and I don’t think that would mean abandoning much.
Less importing cheap labor means higher prices. Welcome to math. Americans expect no effort and lives of luxury because they’re at the center of an empire - except of course the ruling class increasingly reaps the rewards, and the money doesn’t recirculate into the economy due to how it’s structured, so we just slip into poverty. Neither major party will fix this, by design.
True, but the voters still want both low prices and good paying jobs, and the Dems promised neither. That’s my point.
Biden’s campaign actually spent months claiming they had stopped inflation (though the inflation, particularly “price inflation”, basically all happened during/under his admin, though as a result of Fed policy, supply chain issues, whatever degree of corporate price gouging, etc.).
Except we weren’t worse off after 4 years because 4 years ago we had Covid, and now we don’t.
We still have covid-19. Sure, fewer people are dying from it now, and yes, we have a vaccine, but most US Americans aren’t getting the regular booster shots required for continued protection against covid. It still kills people. It still causes brain damage and organ damage.
Overall, US Americans just stopped caring about it and stopped taking measures to avoid it.
It’s not about prices bro. It’s about culture
Elaborate
A lot of people talking politics online are younger or trump era folks (post-2016). I can tell you right now, policy don’t mean shit in this country. It’s about culture wars and racism. Romney ran on almost identical policies Trump has ran on THREE times. Deregulation, immigration, lower taxes, agency cuts. Typical Republican shit.
Difference is, Romney didn’t dog whistle enough, he was your average Republican. And Obama beat him comfortably. Trump campaigns almost entirely on culture war nonsense and has a HUGE propaganda machine behind him. But his campaign policy is no different from any other Republican.
Do you honestly think if Trump didn’t lean into racism, xenophobia and bigotry that he’d be successful in politics and gotten this far. You think racist rednecks would storm the Capitol for some billionaire 1 term generic Republican? Come on people. Use your brains. It’s Republican politics 101, always fight culture wars until that specific fight runs out of steam (post 80s gay panic).
Yes, Biden lost because of stickers, not because the economy of the average voter is in shambles
No, you’re missing the point - the Dems lost because Biden hadn’t built up any trust with average voters regarding the economy over the last four years.
Any informed voter would know the Dems will be better for them than the GOP who has never been more interested in funneling money to their rich benefactors. But the average voter is not informed.
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In a capitalist society, the role of government should be to protect citizens from corporations.
If nobody is willing to do that, what use are they?
I don’t know what all these comments are about he said it perfectly.
They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs
And they won’t. Which is why they are a sunk cost. Ameicans will keep investing in it because it’s, “the only othe choice” and the party will lose again and again.
2016 was 8 years ago people and the DNC has not evolved in the least.
i would love for the centre voters that didn’t vote for the Dems to be more explicit about these “lessons” and “beliefs” and “needs” that the Dems are not addressing.
How about liberals be more explicit about “too big to fail”, “the economy”, “keeping the nation safe”, etc.
It’s no mystery that working class people can’t afford housing. It’s no mystery that the minimum wage has been stagnant for decades. It’s no mystery that democrats rely just as heavily as republicans on coorporate lobbiest and they let them set the agenda.
The status quo is a vicious machine that eats low income families alive and you sit and wonder why you can’t run on defending it.
thanks
did that motivate you to not vote for Harris?
I voted harris
thanks for contributing but as i said i want to hear from those that didn’t
Left vs right or democrat vs republican — that framing is a distraction in this political reality. The war is between the 99% and the 1%. It’s the working class vs the billionaire class. Your republican neighbor may be a MAGA religious crazy, voting against his financial interests, but he’s been successfully manipulated by a corrupt party controlled by billionaires. Your other neighbor may ‘vote blue no matter who’, ignoring or ignorant to the fact that most democrats at the state and federal level are also influenced or bought by corporate interests and the 1%. These neighbors are clearly not the same, but they are both supporting the interests and agenda of a billionaire class that is oppressing them.
That is not to say that republicans or religious extremism are not threats — they very much are — but they have been allowed to gain power due to a broken and corrupt system of government.
The system is broken because unlimited money gets funneled into politics. It’s destroyed our checks and balances, as well as the incentive structure for our judges and our representatives — most of whom no longer have a primary interest in representing the 99% of us. We are being taxed, robbed, poisoned, oppressed and enslaved by our own government, without even proper representation to show for it.
We cannot expect that our elected representatives will act in our best interests; they require our constant input and scrutiny of their actions. Either we as a people become more involved with politics at all levels of government, or we start a revolution. The problem of corruption in all levels of our government will not be solved by the corrupted. A continuation and increase of wealth inequality will destroy this country.
The corporate-backed fascist MAGA-America regime starts tomorrow, but we are not powerless. The 99% has power. We must come together, organize, educate, exercise empathy and patience with one another, and take action; we can take back control. We have to.
Nothing will happen until there is a major crisis of some kind. Life is way too easy for most people. Occupy was a failure for this reason. You need Great Depression style suffering or better yet early 20th century labor conditions in order to get any ball rolling. Great Society was nothing really.
The 99% has power only if we seize it.
Speaking of the Democrats setting themselves up for failure, if the Gaza ceasefire holds Trump will take care for it and Michigan will likely be solid red for at least a generation, not unlike Florida after Obama improved relations with Cuba.
Maybe that will happen. But I think it’s far more likely that Trump will end the genocide by letting Netanyahu finish it. And I don’t really see his administration doing anything other than alienating American Muslims, since he’s certainly not going to protect them from his followers. He’ll probably egg them on.
That said, Biden could have at least pretended to care about Gaza, and didn’t, so a lot of Michigan voters are pretty fed up with the Democrats, and maybe they’ll throw their support wholeheartedly behind the Republicans. I don’t see how that will get them anything they want, but they wouldn’t be the first, and they won’t be the last, group of voters who steadfastly vote against their own self interest.
I think we’re at or close to the point where people just don’t want another fucking corporate neoliberal in charge, and most of them don’t have enough to lose to justify holding their nose to vote for more of the same. Unless the DNC does something different I expect it’s just going to go to the Republicans for the foreseeable future.
Trump has so many problems. But he can at least claim he’s going to be something different, which Harris and Clinton did not.
And I don’t really see his administration doing anything other than alienating American Muslims
Unlike last time, Democrats aren’t going to be able to credibly pretend that they have American Muslims’ backs.
That’s true. But the Republicans certainly won’t either. The Democrats haven’t earned American Muslims’ trust, but to run into the arms of the party that loudly and constantly demonizes Muslims at every opportunity as a result makes no sense.
I would understand a lot of people in Michigan disengaging from politics (although that would probably objectively make their lives worse in the long run). I can’t see them supporting Republicans though.
The Democrats haven’t earned American Muslims’ trust,
Over the past year or so, they’ve gone out of their way to earn Muslims’ distrust.
I’m referring to this. Trump surprisingly had a lot with this most recent ceasefire, and even if he didn’t he’d take credit for it. I don’t see him forging good relations with American Muslims, but in the future I think we’ll see the GOP campaigning based on the (real or otherwise) accomplishment of bringing peace to Gaza. And when the alternative is the DNC… Yeah.
by letting Netanyahu finish it
That seems kinda unrealistic, no?
Roughly 50,000 (perhaps upwards of 70k) Palestinians have been killed in a little over a year, and if anything, the rate is slowing. The population of Gaza and the West Bank sums to about 5,000,000. The growth rate in 2022 was conservatively 1.75%. That amounts to 87,500 new people every year.
Even when you factor in Israel targeting hospitals and food to try to hurry the genocide along, it’d still take decades, if ever.
Counting deaths alone in Gaza and the West Bank ignores all the Palestinian refugees that have been forced to leave Palestine altogether; in either case, Israel wants to settle the rest of Palestine to cement their claim to it and control over it.
Ahh good point, it looks to be more of a 6% reduction in population if you include the 100k+ who’ve left.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/16/israel-hamas-ceasefire-whats-left-of-gaza-and-its-people
I’m certainly not denying that Israel’s intent is to settle Palestine. Just that they even have the capability to do so within the next 4 years.
Just gonna say that the numbers you’re using are direct casualties. When you include indirect casualties, such as the people who died to famine or disease due to conditions caused by the war you get numbers upward of 200k.
To think that trump orchestrated or built that ceasefire is complete bullshit
Y’all give those arabs too much credit in Michigan
Americans do think foreign politics are controlled completely by the American president.
When in reality, the president can only do as he pleases when there’s a genocide to outfit.
“The things Harris said, like she was going to give $25,000 for people to buy their first home, there were a lot of people said she was giving their money away to people who didn’t deserve it. It cost her votes. We were trying to tell her that.”
What’s the answer to that? On the face of it, this says that the electorate don’t want public money spent on helping other people who need help. How do you achieve anything other than conservatism with such an electorate? The only thing I can think is that you have to promise to help more of the electorate, and that the money will be come from the very rich. In other words, the only counter to conservatism is a commitment to actual wealth redistribution, and to going up against the selfish interests of the super-rich. That’s not yet even socialism, but it’s still further to the left that the Democratic Party is willing to go. For now, its leadership would rather lose elections to fascists than challenge billionaires.
A few conservative pundits attacked it from the “undeserving” angle. The actual base didn’t give a damn. The actual base thought it was a useless and tone-deaf figleaf of a policy. It was a wonkish policy only a milquetoast centrist could love - a market subsidy that had a long litany of provisos and qualifications. And one that economists stated would just serve to bid house prices up even higher.
The voters didn’t reject progressive wealth redistribution. They rejected half-baked meaningless gestures.
Giving everyone 25K means housing prices go up by 25K. It was a very bad idea and would benefit the billionaire class.
What should have been done was capping rent and building more houses.
It wasn’t “give everyone 25k”
Be more disingenuous.
Indeed only people who use it to buy a house. If everyone has 25K more, then housing prices go up by 25K.
How did you transmute “25k for families that haven’t missed a bill payment in 2 years and who are buying their first home” into “everyone getting 25k to buy a home”?
Do you just disagree with whatever endgame you imagine she’s reaching for, and are speaking to that? Like that policy is just shorthand for something like “everyone gets free money” and that would be bad, so her policy is bad?
How do you transmute giving everyone free money into fixing a housing crisis?
The solution is extremely obvious, and has been done many times: government funded social housing.
Giving people more money to buy a house does not create houses out of thin air. It does not fix a supply shortage, it only exacerbates the crisis.
Making it non-viable for housing to be an investment asset would be more effective. Social housing is perpetually underfunded, and big centralized schemes invariably lead to social problems because of the ineffectiveness of central planning and the failure to involve the actual people living in the housing in the design of the projects. Also, the vast sums of money involved become pork for the big construction firms.
The shortcoming of that is the decades of decline as you destroyed the largest store of wealth people had up to that point.
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First time buyers have had bonuses across the U.S. for years. It absolutely has nothing to do with house prices being higher. Texas does it, Tennessee, Florida, California… Probably everywhere
And the point is by offering up X dollars you increase the aberage price of homes rather than making them more affordable.
You know, I was being facetious, I didn’t actually want you to be more disingenuous…
Capitalism doesnt work, the end. Need a new and better system, not keep contributing to said system
In the meantime, other societies manage it better than we do. Maybe do more of that while we’re coming up with an entirely new economic system?
Are… you lost?
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Capping rent makes more housing less likely. Are you suggesting government built housing?
Not allowing one or two private equity firms to own a lions share of the market would help.
Government built housing is how the UK solved the problem last time. Then Thatcher sold it off and there hasn’t been any real interest in doing it again despite all the same problems coming back.
iirc its not so much a lack of interest as we literally banned local municipalities from building more (not straight up but we banned the mechanism by which they were doing it)
Yeah that will do it
Non profit housing, be it through companies owjed by the municipality or cooperatives who provide housing to their members are very effective means to limit rents and provide housing.
In many European countries it used to be normal for a large part of the rental market to be in the hand of such entities or even housing built to be buyed to own by lower middle class families.
Incidently rents started exploding after a lot of these got privatized in the 80s to 00s.
That’s why you only cap rents on buildings that have existed for some time.
Businesses do not plan for 30 years or more in the future. If landlords can’t make an acceptable rate of return within 30 years, they’re not going to build a new house or apartment building.
So you can attach rent control provisions to buildings that are over a few decades old, and it will have zero impact on the financing and construction of new housing. It will only affect buildings after they’ve long since been built and paid for.
You do have to worry about rent controls discouraging landlords from keeping buildings maintained. But that’s why good rent control doesn’t cap rent, but simply limit the rate of increase. If a landlord can afford to keep a building maintained today, they will be able to keep it maintained in the future, even if rent increases are capped to the rate of inflation.
If anything, smart rent controls like this actually encourage the construction of new housing. By limiting rent increases on old buildings, you encourage landlords to knock them down and replace them with bigger and newer buildings that can be rented at any rate. In unregulated markets, landlords can increase profits by colluding to suppress the construction of new housing stock. Why invest the money in new buildings if you can just increase the rents on existing buildings by conspiring to prevent new buildings from being built? Smart rent controls mean that if landlords want to see their profits increase at any rate higher than inflation, then they will need to actually build new housing units.
Can ypu provide an academic source that supports your claim regarding “smart rent controls” or are you just pulling this from the ether?
I would suspect that once you knock down a building you’ll replace it with luxury housing as you’ll profit much faster as construction is remarkably expensive. I suspect the results of ypur idea is many times fewer affordable homes being available in the long run as landlords are continually looking to make back their latest investment.
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I think that the Liberal ideology, with a capital L, is what is being revolted and rebelled against at a very fundamental level by a majority of America. But the Democrats can’t see it,
The average American has no idea what Liberalism actually is. Half the country believe the lie that the lifelong neoliberal / “traditional conservative” Joe Biden is “leftist” ffs.
Americans are the most heavily propagandized, and poorly educated, population in the developed world.
The small concession is that Trump is almost undoubtedly going to trip over his dick, so we’ll probably end up with a blue wave of some sort in 2028. Nothing will change for the DNC and no lessons will be learned, so 2032 looks bleak as shit.
We need to understand that Dems are not going to fight for anyone besides their donors. They’d rather lose than take pointers from someone like Bernie
Neoliberalism is done, it’s fucked. The liberals wanted and thought they could pull another Bernie and people would just go with it, fuck that.
