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.”
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
“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.
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.
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.
Just look at the responses, complete denial. The american people overwhelmingly didn’t want kamala, the democrats thought they could pull another Bernie and we would just do what they wanted. No, it doesn’t work that way, and no they haven’t learned their lesson. They won’t so long as they retain a modicum of power. Democrats and Republicans are the problem.
Well, I’m not in denial. This country is full of fucking idiots. The next Democratic presidential candidate should be a celebrity that promises to achieve world peace and full gay space communism. Apparently empty promises and celebrity are what win elections.
What you been smoking, my friend?
Next? I’m sorry, but democracy continues to be dismantled. The train has left the station. Trump already had 4 years of training and now with direct support from Musk… Hate fear and more hate mongering…and Trump is using it… So are accusations of election meddling etc… fuck why hasn’t there been that accusation even from Democrats? That’s it… Its game over.
All those highly secured nuclear secrets or files in the restroom at the golf club… anyone who steals something like that… also steals/cheats in the election. But not 1 accusation… Republicans as well as Democrats don’t want democracy anymore. A convicted highly criminal traitor to the country and enemy of the state becomes president without riots etc… The Democrats who are now just pointing at the Republicans with “I told you so” but not doing a riot or anything else are just as hostile to democracy.
Let’s see:
Democrat voter base is steadily more and more changing from the blue collar worker to the more educated, college/university citizen.
Problem: there are more blue collar workers than university/college educated citizens
Part of the democrat campaign zeitgeist is that if you don’t vote for them, then you are [EXPLETIVE].
Problem: most people don’t like to vote for the party with members that calls them slurs
Democrats think that Kamala lost because she is a woman
Problem: for the average voter, gender doesn’t matter in any of the key areas a president has to manage
For the collectivists, the average male voter is assumed to be privileged, racist, bigoted, homophobic, millionaire, uneducated, emotionally stunted, a rapist, a Nazi, not people, and so on
Problem: assuming this is true for every male voter in the sweeping criticism of the patriarchy has left the male voter disenchanted and being pushed into the only people who are listening to them and their problems of unemployment, lack of financial security, health issues, and so on.
There is much more but yeah you guys tried to PIVOT the entirety of your message from the key 4 years like 2 months before the end of the campaign and you couldn’t even do that correctly.
Hear me out, what if they try running an even more genocidal candidate.
Well, the more genocidal candidate won I guess.
They just need to run an even older candidate, but it can’t be Bernie.
It’s not really the age itself, it’s not a competence issue, there’s just so many old people because that’s a demographic that’s overrepresented in the few people whose soul has completely rotted out and is willing to sell out humanity for some marginal personal benefit, and having the skill set to be able to do it.
Oh shit this might just work, GenoSanders when
“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.”
Still one step lacking to understand what Republicans already do.
Moneyed interests are the leaders you get. Money is just one of the kinds of power, but a lot of other kinds are applied in the form of money. You can’t seriously expect to contribute energy of a negligible cost into expressing your opinion and even casting your vote, and even donating a dollar or two, and for that to somehow give real power to your side, even multiplied by millions. You are already choosing from a limited pool of people and positions to support. Defined by parties with real power before your choice. Together with a lot of other conditions of an election.
This is why the perfect, logical, supposedly honest system the more classical kind of Democrats dream about would not result into a honest democracy.
This is why the well-meaning kind of Republicans talk about checks and balances, and interpersonal connections between people having power, and gun ownership and in tech it would seem sometimes that they want to get into dystopian future faster.
That is because dystopian future may be better than dystopian past. Every day of your life is unlike any before it. It’s the same in history and good tall states with institutions and good democracies are devolving into something a bit more “1704 anno domini” all over the world. This is not anything new. The world is always changing. Unfortunately what progressives today consider progress is not the direction in which the humanity is, well, progressing.
But that dissonance is a clue for us to see. It’s not Bronze Age anymore, but humans are still eating each other. Progress is meaningful on such a scale, and so little affected by someone’s personal decisions, that any party or ideology calling itself “progressive” seems arrogant to the degree of madness.
In a 2-party system why should Dems even bother trying to change themselves or how the party operates? I mean they are (or used to be anyway) guaranteed to be voted in again at some point in the future.
As for the last election imo they just didn’t look far enough ahead to see the danger of Trump 2.0. They dilly dallied around with dumb shit, only paying attention to billionaires, completely ignored Americans’ views on Isreal, showed almost zero interest in reigning in food/housing conglomerates’ profits, etc.
Trump got massive gains in several key demographics that are key to long term party success. Most notably Hispanics, which are closing in on the predominant demographic. The wins for men and non college educated people are also a problem, they aren’t as important, but you can’t afford to lose such large demographics by such a large margin.
While no Republicans have really shown to be able to maintain the a fervent base like Trump’s, it’s extremely risky to just trust that people will flock back to the Democrats in a future Trumpless election. A more palatable republican with 75% of Trump’s base could easily see a Reagan level landslide victory.
To the Left, to the LEFT!
Pivot, PIVOT!
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.
Except we weren’t worse off after 4 years because 4 years ago we had Covid, and now we don’t.
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).
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 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,
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.
They want us to think real change is impossible.
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.
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?”
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 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
Y’all stay on Obama’s dick.
Maybe you didn’t read that comment? I think you got it backwards.
Winning is detrimental to the party.
At a certain point, they realized that they make more money when they lose. The end goal of both parties isn’t to win, it’s to make the most money for their members. The democrats just happen to have stumbled into a situation where they have a perverse incentive to fuck things up just enough to barely lose so that they can keep their funding up.
Dems have won every national election except for 2 in the past 10 years.
