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Honestly, if folks haven't listened to that interview of AOC by Jon Stewart, she really lays out the problem with the DNC pretty clearly (and really, they problem with the two party winner take all house, too). I recommend giving it a listen.
Couldn't beat the bad guys on easy mode with every advantage.
Yeah, it's a "poll" problem 🙄🙄🙄 not a "we antagonize and betray our base and voters constantly" problem
Definitely not because they are spineless either
The republicans are bringing back fascism but they are at least doing awful things their constituents want.
I disagree with these things, but they deliver on their stupid backwards promises.
I’ve voted for the democrats for my entire adult life, the very first vote I cast was for John Kerry.
Here’s the thing though. Are you a liberal, you wonder why the party is hated, have you ever seen Last Week Tonight?
Jon Oliver gets on tv every week and talks about some horrible problem that started with Reagan or Nixon and has just been going strong ever since. There are so many of these. And which ones can I look at and go “well the democrats sure did fix X when they finally had the levers of power”
I can’t think of a single thing. The most important project they’ve undertaken was the ACA, and I don’t know if entrenching health insurance companies permanently and legally into the fabric of our nation is all that much to celebrate.
Do they do some good things from time to time, sure. You can point to a policy here or there that are nice. But it’s a party of not-even-half-measures.
Can we have single payer? No How about a public option? No What can you do? Romneycare… great
Can we have immigration reform? No What can you do? DACA and that’ll be rescinded the moment we lose power.
Can we reign in the banking sector? Nah
Can we close Guantanamo? Too difficult
Can we enshrine the right to abortion in law? No, but we will ask justices to pinky swear… oh they just removed it, nevermind
Can we do anything to help the common man? Let me check with the donors, nah they don’t like that, but if you like some tweets about how trump is bad, I’ve got those for you.
A party that refuses to use the power you give it is not much use.
And before you type up your essay about how Ackshually! There was only one weekend in 2009 when they could have passed any kind of legislation at all. Fucking stuff it. Then they should have sat there all goddamn weekend and passed bill after bill fixing this shit box nation. Their lack of any kind of foresight and planning and doing anything but building a better and better donation collection machine has led us to fascism.
They can collect a billion goddamn dollars but have to text me to see if I can give them just $27 more dollars before they can pass a bill. We need a new party to represent the people.
This is really well thought out and written, and the most popular comment on this post.
Please consider adding links at the bottom for some movements we can get behind to achieve this goal. The time for a new candidate isn't when Biden suddenly wants to drop out and fuck us over, the time is now.
Can we please resurrect FDR, we need a newer deal.
Sure. But the cost of the incantation is another great depression.
I can’t think of a single thing. The most important project they’ve undertaken was the ACA, and I don’t know if entrenching health insurance companies permanently and legally into the fabric of our nation is all that much to celebrate.
Yes, and don't forget that the ACA was modeled after "Romneycare" that Mitt Romney had implemented in MA, which in turn was modeled after a plan from the Heritage foundation. In other words, the ACA was essentially a Republican/conservative plan. The main reason Republicans hate is that it was Obama who implemented it nationwide.
Single payer was killed by Lieberman, Hillary Clinton actually pushed for it. When it became clear they didn't have the votes in the Senate they tacked to an idea implemented by Romney after some Republicans hinted they would support it - none did.
“well the democrats sure did fix X when they finally had the levers of power
Dems only had "the levers of power" for 4 months out of like 40 years, when they weren't stymied and blockades. That's a big to-do list for so short a time.
Clinton era. It's not been great but the Democrats haven't even tried. The Republicans were out there talking about goals while the Democrats only ever offered tweaks. Nobody is going to get excited over "I'll keep the status quo!"
If they had spent the last 20 years actually advocating for progressivism and unions then they'd be winning more trifectas.
Always the victims and never responsible.
Huh - apparently just being not-the-Republicans isn't enough.
The important question is, will the DNC learn anything from this?
I'm guessing no.
It'd be bad enough if that just meant that the US is for all intents a one-party system, but at this particular point in history, the future of the country and the lives of millions depend on effective opposition to those who are building a plutocratic/fascist oligarchy, and the exact institution that should be the vanguard for opposition is just a bunch of greedy pigs and cowards.
They didn’t even learn anything from Dubya. Their answer to Bush was Clinton, not Obama. Obama was an unexpected primary winner thanks to people that were insanely enthusiastic about his platform, and healthcare reform coming into the public spotlight. The turnout he got was like nothing they’d been able to do before.
And what they took away from that was “wow, Obama was just a once in a generation charismatic speaker.” 🤦♂️ I look forward to the next round of being told how good the economy is!
Of course they won't learn jack fucking shit. If we have another election it will be "super fascist Nazi KKK" Republican vs "corpo fascist mildly less racist" Democrat. American politicians have completely abandoned anything remotely resembling liberal or leftist ideaology in favor sucking the fat dripy corporate cock for money. It is utterly disgusting.
I'd like to be hopeful that with the list of DNC committee members leaked that maybe the ones who want to drag the party left will come together and bring change. But honestly I'm just hoping to be able to afford chicken breasts and eggs by the next election.
I've never understood why "Not Republicans" isn't enough, frankly.
Criticism of center-right Third Way corporatists aside, one would have to be half braindead to believe a chasm still doesn't separate the two. I mean, if you could go back and take milquetoast over Hitler, wouldn't you?
I mean it was basically Stagnation vs. Fascism if viewing Dems in the worst light this cycle (and that's being harsh). Gee... Tough choice.
Instead let's take a step back and recognize the superseding problem: if you don't fix the skewed media landscape, then it really doesn't matter who you run or what policy you run because reality is being distorted by the right wing propaganda machine.
Harris was better than Trump in literally every single way. Trump could do no wrong in the electorate's eyes while Harris had to be perfect. Can't win with that uphill battle / double-standard.
There's a reason the education gap widened this election. People who had critical-thinking skills to sort truth from bullshit understood this.
I've never understood why "Not Republicans" isn't enough, frankly.
Well there are two reasons:
1-It'll never beat fascism. The "critical thinking" skills you're talking about simply don't exist or aren't well-developed in most of the American (or really, world) population. The average person does not care about politics, so you have to make them care and no matter how good your stick is if there's no carror it won't stick. Voters can wait hours in polling stations to vote for the smaller shit sandwich against the bigger shit sandwich, or they can just... not do that and go about their day. The consequences will only come later, meanwhile the disappointment and indignation come now. Humans simply aren't made to take the lesser evil here.
2-Voting for a politician is an inherently transactional affair. You vote for them and if they gain power they use it to pass the bills you want them to pass, or at least prevent bills you don't want to pass from passing. The Democrats stopped honoring that transaction, and in their misguided rightward shift crossed too many red lines. They angered Muslims and progressives by their stance on Gaza, they angered left-leaning Latinos by their stance on immigration, and angered the average voter by pretending that the economy was fine and that they were doing a terrific job when it was not and they were not, etc etc. I remember seeing a comment here a little ways back saying something to the effect of "I'm a Latino and I used to vote blue because of immigration, but now they adopted the republican position so they lost my vote". Repeat this enough times and you have a significant fraction of their support base saying "you don't care about me or my struggles? Then fuck you too" and not voting on election day.
Warn democrats that this is happening and they call you a russian trumper and blame you when they lose.
just being not-the-Republicans isn't enough.
That's not a Democrat issue; that's an education issue in America.
Remind me why it's a political issue and why one party needs to educate people to where they can choose the least bad of two options again?
Just run a series of ads like "stop hitting yourself" and "is hate making you rich yet, or just them?"
And maybe don't stop. Make a "lie down with dogs" one and a "fox managing henhouse" one.
Fuck it. Just cover all the fables and adages. If it's on commercial spots in-between wrestling matches, maybe it'll reach enough.
We it's a good thing the Democratic Party has a history of listening to incredibly obvious poll results...shit.
What's to favor? Conservative-lite is only sensible by comparison to the fascists-in-denial that got elected. If you actually want your government to change the world to make it better for everyone, then neither major party is for you.
It’s almost as though the people don’t like it when you lie to them about genocide or the failing mental acuity of your candidate.
But that can't be true, they voted for Trump.
They just didn't vote.
That's so strange after all of the they did in the last election cycle, or how they stood up for and made sure that .
Eh.
Give it 4 years (at least) of non-stop increasing fascism under Republicans and people will begin having a more favorable view of Democrats.
Then give it a few more years for dumbass Americans to forget all about the darkness and vote their abusers back in because Democrats didn't fix every problem known to man.
Democrats didn't fix every problem known to man.
...with a completely hostile house and Senate, if trends hold.
We're not asking Dems to deliver a utopia, but to have standards that go beyond "normalcy". Those dumbass Americans have standards, that is why more people didn't vote for Trump than did.