The victories were a clear rebuke of Trump’s politics, but also a referendum on the Democratic party’s own centrism that is complicit in the violence of masked men hunting immigrants, the funding of a genocide and the denial of healthcare to citizens of the world’s wealthiest country.
…Hakeem Jeffries, who is running for speaker of the House, will not commit to holding a vote on abolishing ICE. He opposes Medicare for All. He has said he will not hold Trump accountable for the human rights violations committed, portraying it as a question of “getting even” rather than achieving justice where it was denied. Chuck Schumer, who holds similar positions, has an extraordinarily low approval rating – yet plans to run for majority leader in the Senate. Electeds are questioning whether these men should hold these roles.
But the dissent must also come from us, as it has been. We need to demand an end to the fast violence of guns on our streets trained on our neighbors, bombs dropped from the sky and the slow violence of people dying because their healthcare was denied or their food stamps were cut.
We need to organize, and mobilize, to demand the multi-racial democracy we were promised – not a playground for the rich to get richer on the time and labor and lives of the poor.
AIPAC WON
I think AIPAC and Israel are in their death throes
Does it ever?
It did for Bill Clinton and they’ve been chasing that high for decades. Both bribes and Blue No Matter Who votes! 🤤
Wait, does centrism ever win an election? Thinking back on both Republican and Democrat victories, it seems catering to the moderates of the other side to try and win them over never works.
It helped having a President who pissed everyone off though. Maybe with some work we can turn some of the centric Republicans to the left a bit, if we can show having power to the left means results. It isn’t over, it hasn’t even started yet.
Wait, does centrism ever win an election?
You could argue this happened in 1992, and it would also be the last time centrism won an election. In 1992, Democrats had basically given up on the political hegemony that had defined them since WW2, and accepted the political hegemony of neoliberalism and Ronald Reagan. And they won on it. It won an election for them.
And since that time, Democrats have been convinced that they had to run to the center to get “moderate” voters, when in reality, “centrist”/“moderate” voters never actually manifested. It was a middling black-swan event, but what it did, is it gave corporate democrats a hall pass to permanently assume a thing about a thing that didnʻt exist or even actually happen.
The very principal of a left versus right spectrum, represented as a normal distribution, is a construct of liberalism1. Its a way to represent an assumption about how voters think and behave and are distributed. And you are under no obligation to accept this construction. And when this construction has to get pushed up against reality; real actual voters with real actual data, it falls apart2. And this is because voters are messy, complicated, contradictory things. And this should be an obvious explanation because actual voters are actual people, and actual people are messy, complicated, contradictory things. A scientific materialist should faithfully reconstruct the models, push the models against the data, and reject the models which donʻt match the data. Any rational person who has borne witness to the previous decades of politics should recognize how the liberal construction of voters behave doesnʻt map to the data. It canʻt predict outcomes. There are ways of analyzing politics which do predict future states. But if you narrow your view to what assumptions liberalism demands you make, youʻll struggle to predict future state of politics, which is the ultimate test of any theory. If
You are not obligated to accept the assumptions of liberalism. And if the assumptions of liberalism dont predict beyond the data theyʻre trained on, you should reject those assumptions. You are not immediately obligated to accept other assumptions. In science, we reject theories all the time when the evidence tells us to, and sometimes that leaves us with an uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty about how that system works. But it is better to be uncertain than it is to be comfortably wrong.
1: I consider liberalism to be the parent philosophy of democratic liberalism, republican conservatism, neoliberalism, neoconservatism; all of these extension find their roots in liberalism. Two philosophies not finding their roots here are social democracy (roots in marxism), and american fascism (roots in nazism/ european fascism).
2: I can go into explaining this, but I want to keep the argument brief. The case involves multivariate analysis and stats.
Yeah, this is it. I appreciate the uncertain language of whether or not centrism “won” the 1992 election as well. It really is just an oversimplification where everyone but the establishment loses. The results from the last decade or so should be data enough to show that the way things are measured is fundamentally broken. While the whole left/right liberal/conservative paradigm is still the pervading “default” mode of thinking in the meta of American Politics, but it’s increasingly coming under more scrutiny, especially after this last election once again failed to produce predictions that had the results within their parameters. I think a good portion of that lies in this weird idea that many dem and even academic circles are getting recently that “populism is a right-wing thing”, which is once again predicated on the paradigm of left/right liberal/conservative. Almost like people really aren’t that simple or something…
deleted by creator
Centrism won 2020, kinda. Exactly because of the president who pissed everyone off first
Centrism didn’t win 2020; Biden adopted a lot of Bernie’s platform and even then only won because of COVID. Trump overwhelmingly won the conversation on kitchen table issues.
Covid helped Trump by masking the effects of his economic policies. I’d say that Biden won despite Covid rather than because of it. Did you mean “because of Trump’s failure of a response to Covid”? Because that I could get behind.
Did you mean “because of Trump’s failure of a response to Covid”?
That’s my point, yes. Plenty of people voted for Biden because they wanted someone who would handle COVID like an adult, which Trump was not willing to do. Given how tight the race was it’s very likely Biden would’ve lost if he didn’t have that to campaign on.
It feels like a safe trap to fall into. Republicans have the easier task because they just cater to where people are and use fearmongering to get there. Ends justify means. But it’s nonconstructive. Blind lead the blind. To me that’s definitionally conservatism. When lost, Democrats feel they just need to be Republican-lite (or they are themselves compromised assets – like Sinema, Fetterman, Schumer, etc.).
Democrats have to actually persuade and have a vision and lead the electorate, which can be a harder task. When they have charismatic leadership who can sell this with conviction, this is when they succeed. Especially when as you point out the other side is fresh off of being exposed for the grifters they are (gas prices, etc.)
The fear mongering works because liberal centrists always fail. Democrats has just to be a real opposition that do what rhey preach and abide with international laws
There’s a superseding point. The fearmongering works because the electorate is uninformed and misinformed by megaphones of fearmongering from conservative billionaire megaphones and erosion of education and diversification of media. Yes, we should’ve stuck with FDR’s New Deal approach and his desire for a Second Bill of Rights. But the Business Plot 2 (Reagan) and 3 (Trump) won – especially with aid from foreign interference most notably Russia and Israel but possibly China too.
This makes those who try to do the right thing less palatable to the masses because Fox News & Friends is telling them that any leftist is the literal devil.
Not an easy task to overcome, but tell me a viable path for how we put a Mamdani, AES, AOC in Arkansas and Alabama and I’ll listen.
Just a note on the FDR comment - I love history, not an expert in the details, but most of FDR’s deals dried up and were discontinued because at the time it seemed their need was done. WWII made unemployment practically disappear, and much of what FDR did was to try and give jobs to everyone. A lot of the rest went away once liberal Republicans (Eisenhower) got taken into the Democrat side as Dixiecrats planned their takeover. Reagan was the first major result of that move, and it took over the country fast since businesses loved it.
If people did not notice their lives getting worse due to failure of liberal a lot of them will not fall into the propaganda that immigrants are the source of all problems. Instead of understanding the root causes and try to solve it people like prefer to complain about regular people ans whitewash the liberals failures leading to more people voting for fascism
The more progressives that respect their engagement wins , the more it will be easier to win in harder places
That didn’t stop conservatives whose lives continue to get worse voting for Republicans in Arkansas and Alabama, so I’m not understanding your point?
I’m 100% all for getting more progressives in office, fully embrace a Social Democratic Nordic Model — but I’m still not seeing this viable path to actually getting even a liberal let alone a progressive candidate on the ballot and to vote for in the likes of Arkansas and Alabama.
And are you American? I see you moderate Europe, so perhaps there is a disconnect in one’s understanding of our electoral system and the breadth, depth, and pulse of this nation and its particular states’ electoral makeup.
The electoral college is a problem for those states, but if that can be tackled, two of Alabama’s districts fell to blue this time, and one of Alabama’s got reasonably close, mostly because of urban Little Rock’s votes.
Rural is going to vote red until they realize, through years of results and through educational messaging, that Republicans aren’t going to ever help them.
Yeah I absolutely believe from here through 2028 the most progressive members of the coalition should be going to these places – kind of how AOC and Bernie reached out to rural voters in West Virginia this past cycle.
It’s the only way to make inroads and to short-circuit the onslaught of money and propaganda that comes from their televisions, social media algorithms, and churches.
My only point is that there comes a point when you must make a choice between two non-ideal candidates, and take what you will. I’m doubting these candidates had the most progressive platforms in the general election, but hey, they did elect their first open trans state legislator (I assume that’s a gerrymandered district, much how Maxwell Frost can win uncontested in FL).
Conservatives always wins after the democrats and worldwide liberals centrists fail. Look at France, le pen has big chance of being next president after Macron centrism failed and led to civil disobedience. It took
I’ve already acknowledged agreement of the problem; the question is implementation of a solution. If I could magically snap my fingers and put a Mamdani, AES, AOC, Talarico in every single seat in government, I would.
But again the forces of money and how poorly educated the electorate is means sometimes persuasion to vote for a better candidate doesn’t come in time, and then we must choose between Center-Right and Far-Right because the electorate only voted for these two choices, given the paradigm I laid out in my original comment.
Wait, does centrism ever win an election? Thinking back on both Republican and Democrat victories, it seems catering to the moderates of the other side to try and win them over never works.
Yes, centrist candidates tend to perform well in two-party systems. However, in systems with open primaries and/or two-round systems, centrist candidates can struggle to reach the final round. Indeed, US politics became much more polarized after the introduction of open primaries.
Wait, does centrism ever win an election?
You need their votes to win any election.
You can’t even get your own voters to show up (2 million Ds sat out the last Presidential election).
You need independent votes to win anything. There aren’t enough Ds or Rs (28% each). Without independent support (of which centrists are the majority, two thirds) you lose. Every time.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/fact-sheet/party-affiliation-fact-sheet-npors/
Math never lies. Partisans do
it kind of varied with region. Here in Texas both Talarico & Hinajosa are certainly more centrist in their approaches, and I don’t think open progressives could have won a Statewide elections here like they did.
Completely agree, but for anyone not in Texas you need to understand that for a lot of people here “average centrist” is basically “militant communist terrorism”.
In retrospect (and purely, only in retrospect), if we had packed the ballots with progressives they’d have gotten in anyway. I feel strongly that the election was decided here in Texas by low information voters doing the opposite of what they did last time because that’s all they could think to do. I really don’t think it went any deeper than that. The fascists knew that about their base, that’s why all their ads have always been fear based. This time, real world fear was flying in the face of the manufactured fear, and it became impossible to ignore any longer. Many of these people have never left the state. They’ve only seen six dollar diesel in memes about California. When they saw that at home it was like seeing a tiger in their kitchen. They ran for the voting booths the same way they’d run for the shotgun.
Under no circumstances would I have ever placed a bet on a statewide blue sweep! I remember Anne Richards, I feel like she’d be happy about this outcome.
I feel strongly that the election was decided here in Texas by low information voters doing the opposite of what they did last time because that’s all they could think to do.
That’s giving low-information voters too little credit. While I don’t know what exactly is going on in their heads, we do have a consistent pattern of Republicans voting for progressives (see: Obama in 2008*) so clearly there’s some amount of thought going on here. The complaints about Harris are I think also informative; some Republicans vote blue when the blue candidate seems like they’ll do stuff for them and isn’t an empty suit.
*Obama wasn’t a progressive, but he ran like one.
I think you’re on to something. The working class are so desperate for working class policies that they run towards anyone who can convince them that’s them, then when those lies are revealed, they run in the opposite direction.
I mean fucking duh. And no matter how desperately Matt Iglesias or Rahm Immanuel try and twist this, theyʻll never win another election for Democrats.
on Bill Maher show last night (a hate watch for me) they were going on about how the midterm results were specifically NOT in support of the DSA and “extreme leftist” policy and i am like, bitch, the fact that you feel the need to deny it at all is the massive win here. 🙄
This vote was against Jeffries and Schumer.
Democrats focused on basic, universally appealing topics so in a sense that is centrism. The real test will be how they can approach more divisive social issues.
In the global sense - 32 of the 33 OECD (“developed”) countries have some form of universal healthcare, so yeah, that’s a “centrist” issue, and anyone against universal healthcase is, in that sense, already right-wing. Same, really, with most social safety nets.
So it always rankles me when someone in the US claims to be “centrist”. Not only is that already right-wing, but with the Overton Window, it really IS generally right-wing.
I mean, Abdul barely won so I wouldn’t say going really far left just automatically works either. If I grant that centrist just means liberal (which is left of center), I think what the midterms taught us is that it depends on the state since most of the candidates that won would be considered too far right by more progressive leaning people. In other words, the overton window is slightly different in each state, and thus some policies that would be considered moderate in New York would be considered radical in Mississippi
Abdul barely won after fighting not only the Republicans, but also the Democratic party. It sure seems like Progressive ideas are more popular than MAGA and Centrisim combined. I think the lesson here is that if Dems lean into their Progressive wing instead of trying to suppress it, they’ll win with FDR numbers.
Fighting against the Democratic party? Is Haley Stevens the entire democratic party now or something? Kamala Harris and Obama tried to help Abdul win after the primaries
Haley Steven’s was the Centrist pick. She was the preferred candidate of Chuck Schumer. All those insanely Islamophobic attacks launched against Abdul during the general were given legitimacy because they were Dem party attacks in the primary. In fact, they were agreeing that Abdul was saying some dangerously radical things and he needed to moderate his position in order to win. The Dem leadership threw their weight behind Haley Steven’s in the primary and when she lost, they waited a long, long time to begrudgingly support Abdul only when it was clear he had enough popular support to win.
While it is good that Kamala Harris and Barack Obama eventually supported Abdul, it was clear they hopped on the bandwagon only after checking where the wind was blowing. They did not support him out of party loyalty or because they align with his political views; they supported him when it was clear they would benefit politically from doing so. Up until that point, they were perfectly content to wait in the background as Abdul suffered from the most blatant racist attacks ever launched against a political candidate since their own campaigns. If you recall, Abdul spoke with Obama shortly after winning the primary and asked Obama to campaign and support him. Seemingly, Obama declined since Abdul told the press, “I really hope he campaigns with me.”
In case you need it spelled out:
Dem party launches racist attacks in primary. MAGA uses those racist attack in the general. Centrist Dems offer legitimacy to the racism by saying, “Yeah MAGA has some good points. This guy is kinda problematic.” Abdul’s movement becomes undeniably popular. Some Centrists hop on the bandwagon. Haley Stevens nukes her career in the 11th hour. The rest of the Dem party is forced to endorse Abdul.
Just like with Mamdani and the Demos letting Cujo run as a spoiler candidate.
Liberal is the center upon which the whole left/right is gauged against. It’s the right that keeps denying that.
Maybe back then, but the Republican party has drifted so far right that a centrist today in America would have to be fascist-lite, no?
Hey, look, absolutely organize. Absolutely be there for the primaries to support your representatives. But the DNC is progressive.
The DNC is progressive? Really? What rock do you live under? Holy shit Americans have zero class consciousness.
You don’t like taxing the rich?
Does the DNC support taxing the rich? Because the DNC’s opposition to a recent ballot measure in California tells me that they don’t.
The measure lost by more than half a million but I’m pretty sure I can guess which part the 48% For votes are affiliated with and it’s NOT R.
Kamala Harris managed to convince the rightwingers that she was going to tax the rich so hard that they were afraid it would take the entire economy down: LINK
There is a reason Donald Trump’s inauguration was a bunch of Billionaires lined up on stage. There is a reason the last time there was a federal budget surplus was under a DNC president. There is a reason taxes on the wealthy have only ever gone up under blue tie presidents. There is a reason the GOP opposes literal democracy and voting rights.
Ah yes, Champion of Progressivism Kamala Harris who had Progressive allies like Liz Cheney, promised Progressive ideas like having the most lethal military in the world, and was ideologically aligned with other Progressives like Third Way or The Bulwark. She definitely lost the election because she was just too dang progressive when she refused to condemn Isreal’s genocide or shied away from prosecuting corporate price gouging. /s
Don’t get it twisted. Progressives are in the Dem party because they’re the only game in town, but the Dem party and especially Dem leadership is not and has not been progressive for decades.
The D governer as well as the state party campaigned against the billionaire tax. You’re proving the point that the D leadership is actively ignoring the will of the people.
The Party told you to disbelieve your eyes and ears.
Not As Bad As Republican is the only choice Americans are offered.
If they’re too lazy to vote every centrist out of the Democratic party during the primaries that’s on them for not choosing who they want representing the democrat side by going to vote during every election
The Republican party is a lost cause
In some states you can only vote in your own party’s primary. So if they think all the Democrats in their state actually want capitalism, then they’ll register as third party.
cost of living defeated the republicans. Democrats were barely even along for the ride.
According to voter polls only 39% of voters chose the economy as their most important issue in the election, and they broke 50/50. In second place was the state of democracy at 33%, and those people split 80/20, meaning that a plurality of Democratic voters had the state of democracy—not the economy—as their most important issue. People are more varied than you give them credit for.
I’ll say pointedly that it felt gross going through the fox website, despite the fact that they generally perform accurate polling. However, they seem to have neglected and jumbled independents, making up a third of the US. Independents came out in droves for a midterm, which was peculiar and auspicious. In a few weeks, I’ll be able to assess based on complete turnout whether I need to rethink. That was a valuable, but disgusting thing you offered me, though.
I’ll say pointedly that it felt gross going through the fox website, despite the fact that they generally perform accurate polling.
Relatable, but unfortunately their exit poll is the most detailed.
However, they seem to have neglected and jumbled independents, making up a third of the US.
My understanding is that the Democrat/Republican sorting is about who a person voted for, not their party affiliation. They have questions that separately ask about party affiliation, and there they usually say “including leaners.” See: “No matter how you voted today, do you usually think of yourself as a: (including leaners)”. Which is to say: It’s not that a plurality of Democrats had the state of democracy as their most important issue; it’s that a plurality of people who voted Democrat (including quite a few Republicans, both including leaners) did.
cruelty and grift played no part in the election huh? Interesting theory-- that someone else made up for you hoping you’d accept and consume. Cant go looking at other causes.
cruelty and grift
I genuinely perceive this as adorably optimistic. No, most people just care about their daily needs. The knitted skullcap Antichrist rapes, present tense, and independents began to care once gas rose above $5 per gallon. What in the world makes you think that ethics somehow played a part in this?
I truly wish I could be adorably optimistic. Seriously though, the economy wasnt great under Biden but it wasnt even close to as grim as it is now, and Biden/Harris AND congressional dems got thoroughly trounced in that election. Repubs took the presidency, and the house and the senate. I think there were multiple issues at play, with the economy being one of many things rather than the one reason Harris lost. No one can prove it but I bet if Harris had just called the Israeli war on gaza a genocide and signalled support for health care reform I bet she would have had the votes to win.
Democrats are only 28% of the voters (just like Republicans).
Independents are 44% of the voters (of which centrists are a significant part, over 30% alone… still a larger segment than D or R parties)
Centrism wins every election.
D and Rs are shrinking, and have for years.
(Independents are very rare on Lemmy, but not in the real world, which is the exact opposite of Lemmy)
It’s important here to note that people tend to consider themselves more moderate than they actually are. Case in point 60% of independents (and almost all Democrats) as of 2024 wanted some form of universal healthcare. “Centrism” is actually way to the right of the median potential Democratic voter.
I’m an independent voter who doesn’t like the Democrats because I’m a fucking anarchist, cope harder.
Also, we literally all know what kind of “centrist” you are, Lemmy is a small place.
To add: I haven’t met any self-described centrists IRL in over a decade. Nowadays it’s a huge red flag and even the centrists know that. One is either in the cult of personality, or in one of the multiple sane groups outside the cult.
Independents are 44% of the voters (of which centrists are a significant part, over 30% alone… still a larger segment than D or R parties)
Bullshit.
