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They’ve taken the side of corporations over unions and dangle popular policies like Medicare for all until the general election where they abandon it.
But mostly it’s vibes. The Dems don’t say “it’s hard we’ll fix it” they say “it’s actually going really well we already fixed it”
Absolutely this.
This is going to sound awful coming from a person who voted for Kamala. But when Trump wanted something, he pushed forward and gave zero fucks who he burned. Trump wanted a wall, and then there's a wall. Granted, it's shitty, it's expensive and an eyesore, and it does absolutely nothing and no Democrats voted for it (that I'm aware of). But to the stupids, they see it as a win.
Democrats fight for a policy, and then carve it over and over to appease corporations, billionaires, conservatives, and anybody who might feel threatened by it. And to those who could really benefit, they suffer. So yeah, I can see why people would shrug at giving a vote for Kamala.
Again, I voted for her. But in reality, I want a candidate who will go, "Listen motherfuckers. All kids in America will get fed. Suck my dick if you hate it. Every single kid will get a sandwich and if you speak again, will destroy you."
LBJ was a monster. He sexually harassed and assaulted everyone. He killed so many people in Vietnam. He was pretty fucking racist. And I swear to shit we need more democrats who act like him in leadership (outside those aspects). He’d say slurs against people if it got them more civil rights. The Buck stopped there and he’d make shit happen. I swear, I’d kill for a democrat who could get republicans to vote for queer rights even if that requires them to call us every slur in the book. We need a great society. A country that can stand up for us working folks and for us minorities. An America of higher ideals forged by those attempting to live up to them.
We need that or an FDR, someone who can offer up a new deal, a fairer and kinder America paid for by the prosperity it creates. Instead we’re getting a whole lot of Andrew Johnson at best and Hindenburg at worst.
The Democrats’ plans for the working class are tweaks. A little tax credit here, a little minimum wage bump there.
But the working class in America have been experiencing long term systemic structural changes that permanently disadvantage them, globalization being one of them.
Between shipping manufacturing jobs elsewhere, and allowing in immigrants who do menial work, people at the low end of the economy are pretty pinched for work. People will say “Americans don’t want to pick fruit” and there’s some truth to that. But there definitely are Americans who want to mow lawns for a living and they’re constantly undercut on price by guys from Mexico who sleep 10 to a room so they can send a few dollars back to family in the old country. I love and admire those guys, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no question that people at the low end of the economy feel pinched from both ends, and one side of that pinch is the commodification of unskilled labor due in part to an unbounded supply of immigrants.
Trump voters see his policy on tariffs and they don’t think “hm economists say this could lead to a drop in GDP.” They see a structural policy shift aimed at bringing manufacturing back to the US. However ill-conceived it might be doesn’t matter. It’s big, it’s bold. It is a fundamental reordering. Economists flap their hands and Trump voters say “good - run scared, you Wall Street pimps.”
If I sound like I’m defending Trump voters, I’m not. But I absolutely believe that the Democrats have to offer more than tweaks and handouts to address the working class.
America spends huge amounts of money to project power abroad. We’re the richest nation by far. Why isn’t that benefitting the working class? These are real questions. Trump has all the wrong answers, but Democrats don’t have any answers. And frankly they are a bunch of moneyed elites, and I don’t throw that term around much. Look at the personal net worth and residential addresses of top Democrats and you’ll see rich people. They have a lot to lose in Bernie’s revolution and they don’t believe in it.
Good reply. I'd also note that the working class sadly tends to have less education, which is very useful because it has made common people easier to control and lie to since the dawn of time.
One particular thing I noticed, is on the one hand was the rhetoric that Biden was the saviour of the economy and the working class, the antithesis to corporate greed, and all problems are from COVID and leftovers from Trump; and on the other hand, that prices are rising, people are poorer, while corporations post record profits.
If I were an American, that dissonance would give me a little skepticism about all the pro-democratic rhetoric I've been hearing.
Again, not that that really answers the questions, but it does shift the impressions one gets.
Why isn’t that benefitting the working class? These are real questions. Trump has all the wrong answers
The existance of people like Trump and Musk are the answer.
They are part of the problem, but not the answer. An answer would be how we can ensure that everyone supporting their enterprises shares in their wild wealth and success. There could be many answers to that. And Democrats need to pick one and drive it.
It should be said that Musk is manufacturing cars in the US, which is more than a lot of manufactured goods companies can say.
Between shipping manufacturing jobs elsewhere, and allowing in immigrants who do menial work, people at the low end of the economy are pretty pinched for work.
Isn't the unemployment rate close to record low? I mean, a lot of people work 2 and more full-time jobs to make ends meet, but that seems like a different issue.
Unemployment is typically measured by people seeking unemployment benefits, not by volume of people out of work.
Similarly job creation is usually measured by job offerings and not positions filled.
As a result you can get what has been happening: low unemployment and high job creation where people aren't getting jobs and jobs aren't being filled.
US is under going a demographic shift as boomers aging out and gen z is barely enough to replace them as wage slaves. Also, there is cultural shift in attitude to work with younger generations, who see no prosperity from their labour.
This is causing pressure on wages that owners can't handle emotionally or otherwise. Owners are disgusted at the idea of a labour market actually being a market. Migration pre covid since 2000 was steady at 1 million net inflow per year, it is now closer to 2-3m. These people are used to suppress wages of the indigenous workers.
Manufacturing jobs did get shipped off but are also now getting reshored as part of a strategic reshuffle US did after covid. but a lot of these modern manufacturing is automated so we are not giving back to the glory days of millions of six pack joes living the "middle" class life style.
Global capital is extracting ever more productivity and price gouging us on consumer end of existence. WIN WIN! And the state is letting them...
“good - run scared, you Wall Street ~~pimps~~ simps.”
FTFY
We’re the richest nation by far. Why isn’t that benefitting the working class?
35 trillion dollar question. A discerning observer would note that 30t was incurred since Raygun admin ie during entire lives of millennials and before gen x. The money is gone thought and we have nothing to show for it. In fact, life has been progressively worse for each subsequent generation. I still remember "old guys" aka gen x bitching about how boomers were cock blocking them on getting aheadm these gen x now being boomers themselves but less since pie for working people is smaller for each younger gen.
Neither side will address this core issue. In fact, mainstream discourse won't even acknowledge this is happening. Sure they will run "house and daycare is expensive but here is million reason why it is your fault" shit. And boomers larp it too...
Anyway, keep jerking the two party regime, keep getting progressively worse outcomes.
Democrats didn't campaign on their economic plans. They dove deep into MURICAN PRIDE, fighting against dictators and drug cartels, and continuing the work of the Biden Administration. They played advertisements like THIS on TV in September. They campaigned in states that they lost in by trying to appeal to Republicans.
Less democrats total voted this year than 2020.
But yes, you're right to think that Republicans are worse for the economy in every way.
In their defense you would think just being against fascism might be enough. Turns out it isn't.
That's been the case since '16. Things need to change at the DNC because maga sure as shit aren't going away.
I lived in a small town that literally didn't believe COVID was real. During the pandemic, rarely anyone was masked up and then they got extra racist to a poor Chinese family and their restaurant.
These simple motherfuckers don't see or understand fascism. They didn't even see what they did to the restaurant as racist. These dumb hicks vote on gas prices and how much toilet paper cost.
And the rightwards pivot chasing the "regretful Trump voter" and that stellar Cheney endorsement.
Republicans voted GOP just like they always did. People who wanted anything resembling change stayed home. Unfortunately they're going to get that change.....
I voted Harris, but the Democrats need to abandon neo liberalism and embrace economic populism. People need affordable housing, healthcare, affordable healthy food, and a plan for the climate that doesn't involve mass extinction.
That being said, these people won't live long enough to see the worst of it. I hope that I don't. I don't have children, but I imagine that if you're under 35 right now, you're going to live long enough to see the water wars.
I voted Harris, but the Democrats need to abandon neo liberalism and embrace economic populism. People need affordable housing, healthcare, affordable healthy food, and a plan for the climate that doesn't involve mass extinction.
She did do this. It didn't resonate. Who knows what will get through in 4 years. Because who knows where this train is going. They need the house and congress to make real moves.
There won't be another real election.
I understood him to mean that Democrats were more interested in appealing to Liz Cheney as Republican lite, rather than advocating vigorously for the working class. They take money from corporate interests, and then pretend they don't protect them. They didn't do enough to address the problem of inflation, and American workers were angry.
I think what Bernie is saying is that for decades Dems have paid lip service to working class concerns while not actually doing much. In reality Dems have been much more beholden to corporate interests.
By the time these plans came out, too many working class folk were already disenfranchised. They saw a party that was vocal about social issues that frankly were not high on the list of priorities for most of them. They were more concerned that inflation was out of control and they could not afford basic expenses. Sure Trump was racist but at least prices were lower when he was in office, or so they would conclude. If he could bring prices down, they would go with him.
Basically Dems were just out of touch with the most important part of their base until it was too late.
The DNC does not have the peoples' best interests in mind. Not to say they aren't the same as the GOP (not by a wide margin), but they are the political extension of their corporate donors. This is the reason why they don't push forward with universal healthcare, why they're cowards regarding Israel, and why not much meaningful legislation makes it through the gamut that puts the populace first. This is what conservative voters are done with, and many Democrats are fed up with as well. The GOP, for all their evil faults, actually do execute on the issues that their base cares about, though those action tend to be reprehensible.
Any mainstream Democrat candidate will NOT put forth or affirmatively vote for legislation or policy that goes against their donors' wishes. The GOP are the same way, but at least they're up front about it. But it hasn't been just this election cycle, they've been this way for a long time. This is why many call them spineless, but it's not about that; they aren't paid to represent the people, they paid to pretend to care while preserving the status quo (their corporate "donations" far outweigh their salaries for the "right" politicians). Everyone and their mom has been screaming corporate greed for the last four years, yet not a single political committee has put forth an honest effort to go after corporations for price gouging, because they'd lose their campaign donations, similar to how any candidate that goes against Israel would get financially throttled.
Basically Dems were just out of touch with the most important part of their base until it was too late.
Which is their consistent problem every election when the prior Republican admin hasn't made a catastrophic fuck-up.
You can't run on the "we're pro labor" platform and expect the working class to show up for you when your pro labor stance hasn't put money directly into working class pockets since the 1970s or 1980s.
Where are the big public works programs? Where's the massive government spending that employed millions? That's why labor showed up for Democrats in the 1900s, when there were huge govt contracts that employed organized labor, and it's no surprise at all that when Democrats abandoned those policies labor stopped being reliable supporters.
You want to run a successful campaign? Talk about the massive public spending that employed hundreds of thousands during your prior admin. Talk jobs. Talk improved standard of living. Talk taxing corporations to pay for those things and voters will hand you a landslide. Democrats are so afraid of taxing corporations to pay for social spending that directly recruits voters to their cause that they're seen as corporate stooges. And honestly, they kinda are at this point.
This is very much on point I have always seen America as as really having four parties masquerading as two. Progressives , corporate Left , Corporate Right, and zealots and bigots.
The problem is the Corporate Left and corporate Right have been edging Progressives and the zealots and bigots on single issues but never following through as they wouldn't have anything to campaign on. Trump was too stupid to realize this but when he killed Roe (not to be crass but ) he finely let the zealots and bigots cum and they fell in love.
With Progressives that happened with Obama but he just kept edging us never truly giving what we need other than it could be worse. Instead of single-payer Health we got a Republican idea for healthcare.
Every Progressive will tell you that the electoral system is broken but do we ever get Democrats running on election reform. No because both Corporate Left and Corporate Right don't want that. The country is divided up like cable companies Charter gets the northern states and Comcast gets the southern states. But they didn't see musk going over their heads with StarLink fucking up the arrangement.
What you're missing is that all those plans you mentioned, while correct, were (a) just 'plans' with no follow-through to back them up and (b) too little, too late even if they were implemented.
If you are asked where you differ from a whildly unpopular president in a time where all normal Americans are hurting bad, and you answer "nowhere".
And your points on the economy are essentially, the economy is booming..
You disqualify yourself, as we saw.
People did not want more of the same or small incremental change. And apparently the worry some have about fascism taking over is not believed by many.. politicians say a lot.. but they won't do that.
Time will tell.
where you differ from a whildly unpopular president... and you answer "nowhere".
I watched the beginning of the Trump-Harris debate. When Harris was asked why she and Biden kept Trump's trade tariffs (after just saying how bad new ones would be), she gave no answer and went back to bashing Trump.
And your points on the economy are essentially, the economy is booming..
I felt a lot of disconnect between the "Biden is the greatest" and "America is suffering" rhetoric in the lead up to the election.
the worry some have about fascism taking over is not believed by many.. politicians say a lot..
Not American here, but I still have much hope that the fate of America is in the hands of her people. My biggest fear at Trump's election is if it inspires more of the nation to hate and anger - because the president is your leader in that way.
But you see, Trump won because a lot of people voted for him. If the American people can find a new love for the poor, for fairness between worker and manager, for people who look and act differently: then I have great hope for the nation's recovery.
I didn’t want to bother making another account to like this comment twice so I’m just writing this to say, ‘This’.
They are now saying, we got the mandate, we gotta do it. I even heard a rep senator say that they will go after companies employing illegals because then they will go home.
Get ready, because this will cripple agriculture and other sectors.
Also, the IRS knows who employs illegals.. easily. They know how much revenues companies make per employee from massive datasets, they can easily point out the companies that over earn compared to their employee numbers in a specific sector. Same as they can easily determine someone's income from their yacht, house or jet size.
In the Netherlands they for example audit hair salons if their purchase of hairspray (or other consumables) does not line up with their listed revenue.. they know the revenue per bottle of hairspray... Or at least the range it should be in.
Think of this from his perspective: the Democrats put their faith in the idea that money wins elections, and if you can out-raise your opponent the votes will follow. Twice they conspired against Bernie in the primaries because of his platform: tackling wealth inequality, progressive tax reform, and overturning Citizens United v. FEC. They chose corporate interests over the working class because they valued money more than votes.
The dems gaslit the public on inflation. They abandoned the working class decades ago. The economy only got better for the out to brunch professional managerial class liberals while the rest of us suffered.
Most importantly, the democrats haven’t run a competitive primary since 2008, they anointed Harris as their candidate without a single vote being cast for her and then they’re shocked pikachu face when she lost. The fact that democrat operatives make so much money despite being so utterly incompetent that one wonders if it’s malicious it blows the mind.
Well, Controlled Opposition is a lucrative field, friend. You just won't find it on Indeed.
It's not just the US, it's been happening for years in other countries like the UK as well.
Traditionally there has been one party that is for working people and another for capital and the owner class.
The right has been getting further and further into far right authoritarianism. That posed a problem for the Dems going back to the Clinton Presidency: do they stick with being the party of working people or do they try to have their cake and eat it by tacking to the center and assuming that the working class will continue to vote for them no matter what?
It largely worked for a time and gave Obama two terms but ever since then they have been susceptible to criticism that they're out of touch, elitists, entitled, and that they look down their nose at working people whilst still assuming that they will get their vote, which opened the door to Republicans.
You can't serve two masters for very long, you can't be the party of working people while being run by upper middle class graduates. You can't claim to care about the people with the least while cozying up to CEOs and megadonors. Sooner or later it all falls apart, as it did with Hillary Clinton's run, where working people disliked her elitism and she didn't have enough support from elsewhere to make up the shortfall. That should've been a warning. Instead they doubled down.
The problem in the US is that there are only two viable parties. The Dems won't go back to being the party of working people because they wouldn't know how to do that even if they wanted to. What happens when the Trump Presidency turns out to be a disaster?
Plans are not actions. Sanders is talking about what the Democratic party has done (or rather what they've failed to do) not what they promised to do. Words are worthless without action.
It's hard to explain. A lot of it is about vibes and focus over the last several years.
Bernie's being a bit harsh in saying Dems didn't try. Republicans blocked their efforts. But there's also a feeling that they didn't care all that much. At the end of the day, they're career politicians, padding their pockets with corporate donations while demanding starving citizens vote for them because the other guy would be somewhat less palatable. And I guess Trump's honesty about being apathetic and money-grubbing is more appealing than Dems' feigned innocence and solidarity.
Neither side has been willing to change, or even talk about, the shift of wealth that has left most people barely able to get by. Working people get less and less reward for their efforts and the difference all goes to the owners. I think that is at least one aspect of Bernie's complaint about the Democrats.
