The DNC has it's work cut out.
They need to enable those of us who are progressive and who are looking for positive change and using government to serve the people, BUT they can't be smug about it and push progressive/liberal change above all else. The numbers arent there. They NEED moderates, and so they need moderate candidates.
And those of us who are more progressive who arent thrilled about moderates need to vote in the primaries, but then follow through and vote for those moderates we don't approve of in the general election. If we don't show up and vote because the moderate isnt pushing enough change, then we lose all of that and hand the Republicans a win.
While I agree in principle, the DNC needs to realize they also NEED the progressive vote, and stop running candidates that court the republican vote since they'll never get it. Doing that only alienates the progressive vote and quite a lot of independents as well.
When voters are given the choice of voting for a real Republican or a fake Republican, they will vote for the real thing every time. Dems need to stop faking republicanism.
Exactly. If Tim Kaine can run as a democrat alongside Bernie Sanders, then we have no party identity
The Democratic party is a big tent party. You as a progressive need to understand that. If you don't, the party will inevitably move to the right because your vote can't be counted on.
The DNC ignores the largest voting block: liberal working class and poor in order to serve thier right wing donor class. As long as the two parties can disenfranchise most Americans they can push a narrative that everyone is right leaning in order to justify serving special interest.
The DNC ignores the largest voting block: liberal working class and poor
This is just incredibly wrong. I don't know what the "liberal working class" is, but the poor as a voting bloc isn't nearly as liberal as you would hope they are. Blacks, for example, are surprisingly conservative.
You have to first understand the voters if you hope to win their votes.
No, moderate is how Obama won. It's how Bill Clinton won. The way Dems take control is by running liberal candodates where liberal candidates can win and moderate/moderate liberal candidates where liberal candidates cannot win. It's about accepting that each electorate requires a certain type of candidate.
Jones won despite being pro-choice and pro-LGBT. If he had also been in favor of raising taxes, he might have lost (he's in favor of cutting taxes).
So in Alabama or West Virginia, we run a Doug Jones or a Joe Manchin. In Virginia, Delaware, or Ohio we run a Tim Kaine, a Joe Biden, or a Sherrod Brown. In California or New York we run a Kamala Harris or a Kirsten Gillibrand. And in Massachusetts or Vermont we run an Elizabeth Warren or a Patrick Leahy.
We make a coalition from moderate to left-wing, and make a wall of opposition against Trump by running candidates in races that most fit their electorates.
beautifully written. agree 100%. Alabama may never be as progressive as california, but we can certainly make it more moderate and make incremental changes.
Incremental is the way you do it. You get a Democrat into Alabama or West Virginia. Get the electorate to like them. Suddenly, "Democrat" is no longer a dirty word. Stubborn people die off and younger people grow up with a Democratoc Senator. And you make small changes here and there. You make a small change and let the electorate get used to it. Then you can push further, and it'll be less of a jump.
Just look at LGBT rights. 10 years ago you couldn't really push "gay marriage should be legal" at a national level. The most politicians were doing were pushing civil unions. Then the Supreme Court ruled on gay marriage, and what happened? People got used to it. Now the conversation isn't really about gay marriage anymore. It's about transgender people in bathrooms. In 10 years people will have moved on. They'll be used to it. Amd we can push further.
It's about baby steps. And the way we can make baby steps is by forming a diverse coalition who are willing to work together.
Which kind of moderate are you talking about though? Todays, a decade ago, 30 years ago? I agree then unfortunate truth is we must work across the whole spectrum but you gotta give lip service to the fact that this pushing for the middle is how we lost, until recently, the progressive branch of the Democratic party. Every year for decades now we've been trying to pander to the middle, diluting our messages while the right radicalizes it's base and strengthens it. Every year the moderates that we run because the new "extreme left" to Republicans.
Bingo, well said.
The left comprises a larger diversity of opinions than the right. We're going to need to compromise and work w/ moderates for the greater good. In a zero sum game of perfect ideals, we lose to the Republicans. But we have the numbers if that diversity works together to make incremental progress. Tom Perez needs to make sure that we dont push moderates where progressives can win though which makes us stay home. Its a delicate act, but I think they're keen to brininging everyone into the tent
Berinie is the most popular politician in the country, universal healthcare, getting money out of politics, and justice reform is supported by a majorty of people.
How do you use a Bill Clintons win as an example when his policies have since proven to be disastrous for the nation especially minority populations?
Do you stand by the crime bill? Welfare reform? The war in Iraq? Immigration reform? the repeal of Glass Steagal? You support the racist drug war? You support the inequality under of the law of too-big-too-fail?
You run conservative democrats to try to appeal to the right and ignore the much larger voting base of independents who are sick of both right wing parties who represent the rich and ignore the working people with the exception of the hard right poor.
Given the mammoth shift to the right in this country (and that republicans have become democrats, further shifting the democrats right), how far right now is the "moderate"?
Your state's primaries will answer that for you.
If you end up w/ a more right leaning candidate than you want, and you are in swing state (all senate races are swing right now for the Dems), you just have to ask yourself if a principled stand for progressive values on general election day is more valuable than a vote for a less-than-desirable moderate given the rules of the country we live in. We have the numbers to move the needle, but we're going to need to compromise to beat a very well aligned Republican base. I just dont see any other way....look at the damage that they can cause.
Thats a good one. I've seen more than one article discussing the idea of pro-life democrats as candidates.
If you were in a red state and had the choice between a Republican far-right candidate, and the trashing of the environment, the government, and human rights.....and on the other hand a left leaning pro-environment, pro equal-rights democrat who was also a faith-based politician who argued pro-life...what would you do?
Not a valid scenario for a blue state or even a purple one...too offensive to most of the blue voters.....but what if it's a viable path to some semblance of victory in an otherwise unwinnable state?
Well paul ryan is now classified by most as a moderate. He was so far right in the bush era they tried to run him out. So basically any dem is a progressive
That chart is absolute BS, just reading the text should make that clear.
Hell, Hillary is further to the right than Trump. Really? Apparently Trump is for free college tuition and universal healthcare, who knew.
Whatever she says about issues like the minimum wage, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, fracking and Medicare between now and November is unlikely to be honoured in office. Even if she wanted to break the habit of a career and significantly swing towards the 99 percent, her donors like Walmart, McDonalds, Wall Street and so many others simply wouldn't permit it.
Lol. It's an article of Clinton hate, as well as praise for Jill Stein. In other words, extremely biased.
Apparently, r/HillaryClinton has sprung a leak. Just because some people say HRC is a progressive doesn't mean it's true. She was, and always will be, a Goldwater Girl.
Edit: “My political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with,” she said in a 1996 interview.
And no, I'm not saying the woman's perfect, but for a chart to put her further right than Trump is downright asinine (the woman established CHIP for godsakes). That you would defend such a choice makes me question your judgement. You really should be more self-aware than this.
The chart is obviously dated to before Trump did a lot of his more crazy things, and back to when people believed him when he said he'd not cut medicare/medicaid, and back when he said he would be a friend to the LGBT community, etc, etc. I'm speculating since I didn't score either candidate on that site. No matter what that site says, it doesn't change the fact that Hillary is basically an old school Republican (new school Republicans excluded, of course) who ran on the Dem ticket with some socially liberal policy points. That the Overton window moves right and lefties follow it (and stay to the left of the righties) doesn't mean they're still lefties. The far right calls 'moderates' the 'extreme left' now, for god's sake.
The linked article chooses to believe Trump, a serial liar (Yes, even in 2016), at his word when he says he won't cut medicare/medicaid... but anything remotely progressively Hillary would have said was "unlikely to be honored in office" because WalMart and McDonalds wouldn't let her?
C'mon man, you can't be this oblivious. We knew who Trump was in 2016, we knew he was a conman. Hillary had a voting record, we knew whether or not she was likely to uphold her promises. Stein was a known kook in 2016. These aren't things we didn't learn until 2017. There was never a point in 2016 where Hillary was further to the right than Trump. To defend such obvious BS is intellectually dishonest.
That you continue to defend a biased source does not reflect well upon you. That you downvote and attack people for calling out your obviously biased source ("r/hillaryclinton is leaking!") reflects much worse.
Keep downvoting everyone you disagree with, we definitely need more echo chambers.
You obviously didn't read the site's methods and explanations. Your assumptions therefore are based on your observation that they have placed HRC near Trump (yet not nearly as far 'north' on the compass). Perhaps before attacking me you should do your homework. They address this issue and more. I'm sure not researching the methods of the site before criticizing it as 'biased' reflects great on you. Maybe take the test yourself and then judge if it's accurate in your opinion.
Or progressive candidates who are willing to be moderate until a new political climate comes about. There's too much polarization to push a strong agenda at this point in time and the DNC needs to realize that.
Amen.
Personally, I'm very idealistic and always have been. I'm not fond of capitulating with moderate democrats who are doing nothing to get money out of politics. BUT....I've learned to gladly support and work to improve that group w/ my vote rather than just vote ideals in this winner-take-all system where thats perilously close to tossing your vote away.
I had a discussion with my friend yesterday about this, and it's the polarization of politics and ideologies today that's tearing the country apart. Both sides are so far left and so far right, that we need some strong centrist candidates on both sides, and lots of them, to bring both sides to an agreement so we can work together on things.
I'm definitely on the left, but it's a two party system that isn't going away in the foreseeable future so I'd like to see some actual, positive change in this damned country.
Are you referring to more mainline democrats? If so, I dont think they're the problem we're discussing. Its more about the outsides of the party and how to make sure they are comfortable and motivated to fall in line with party picks for the greater good.
Differences in policy are good conversations, but of course it's dangerous to be a single issue voter and give up on your overall best interests because of a difference in policy on one thing that you care about.
If you are referring to Republicans using the government to best serve the people, I cant relate to that any longer. All I see and hear when you try to talk about the role of government is that its bad and needs to be gotten rid of.
So basically democrats need to compromise on everything in order to have a chance and republicans can force their will at any cost and will only sometimes barely lose elections.
Have you not been watching the Republicans in congress waste an entire year at failing three times to repeal the ACA and barely pass 2 different versions of a tax reform that they have yet to reconcile?
Can you please elaborate on what you mean by progressive? You're almost using it as if it's different from liberalism or being a Democrat. What progress are you working towards?
The wikipedia article on the topic is pretty good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
Scroll down to the section on 'Contemporary mainstream political conception' if you want to skip the historical stuff.
That's a load of crap, and intellectually lazy. Swaying moderates to your side is how social change happens, in fact it's the only way. LGBTQ rights would never have happened if it was only flamboyantly gay men and women waving flags at parades, it happened when Will and Grace made homosexuality seem normal to housewives in middle America. Pot legalization would never happen if it was just stoned hippies in dreadlocks pushing for it, bankers and lawyers and cops and firemen all had to see that it's harmless and beneficial to the economy.
Don't attack the moderates for being not progressive enough. We need them. And moderate candidates are sure as hell better than the Trumps and Moores of the world. They can't all be Bernie, the middle ground is where things get accomplished.
I thought this presidential election would have taught people something.
As I see it, you work like hell to get someone who perfectly represents your views and beliefs on the ballot.
If that does not happen: then vote practically and intelligently to keep someone out of office who will actively work to utterly destroy your views and beliefs. Imperfect candidate or not.
Yes, this is how lesser-evil voting is justified.
Simplistic thinking refusing to take in account that the "greater evil" in the case of Trump and his cronies, for example, is massive and one's obligation is to cast a vote to prevent it. Imperfect candidate or not.
Until the day that we have anything other than a first-past-the-post voting system, this is your only choice.
The only way you're going to see Ranked Choice voting in the future is by voting in Democrats. If you vote for Republicans or fail to show up to the polls, you will never see positive changes like campaign finance reform. Democrats are your best path forward.
Learn to read and comprehend friend. One party is worse than the other but Both are clearly very evil. Just ask black and brown people around the globe being bombed to oblivion for the glory of White Imperialism for decades.
What are you trying to prove, that Palestinians and Jordanites don't like him? That chart pretty clearly shows wide global approval. Which says alot, for a US president.
So I guess Obama's drone program killing innocent men women and children daily was just a little bad to you? NSA spy program saving all your nudes and your spouses nudes without consent not that bad? Protecting evil Wallstreet bankers no big deal? Patriot Act?
Seriously, help me understand how Democrats taking a little less money when selling our Democracy is not evil.
Your definition of evil appears to be 'things that are done that I don't like'.
Obama's drone program was killing people who clearly stated they wanted to kill Americans. Civilians weren't the target, they were the victims of horrible mistakes/oversights. From a supporters perspective, Obama was protecting the people he swore an oath to protect from people who wanted them dead. People who didn't need to die died in the process, which America did much to make up for. Is it evil to protect your own?
The NSA spies on people who mean America harm. Again, their entire reason for existence is to do just that, and there's no indication anyone has had NSA surveillance used against them as a tool of state power or to harm innocent Americans. Again, how is seeing to the safety and welfare of your nation evil?
Banks and the rest of wall street have one purpose - to make money. They are required and expected to use every method available to do so. People who get hurt are hurt because they fail to understand the game they chose to play, not because some cackling villain in an office plotted to hurt people. Greed is disgusting in a lot of ways, but it is not equivalent to evil. And governments job is to insure the success of all the citizens of the nation- that includes Wall Street. Is making sure Americans are wealthy and successful evil?
The Patriot Act's purpose is again, about protection. I covered that.
Do I believe any or all of these things are true? Oh no, not at all. Some of these ideas were wrong and callous, and mercenary, and no matter what the intent, some of the results have been bad, period.
But evil is a choice humans make to destroy and degrade other humans, to hurt those who don't need to be hurt, with no real justification.
You don't like what government does, fine. There's a whole dictionary of words that are synonyms for 'bad' or 'wrong'. Use those.
Evil is a different thing and it justifies a different response. Evil at a governmental level creates so many much worse things than anything on your list.
Nothing you listed was evil. Wrong? Maybe. You won't even get some people to agree on that much. Again, perspective.
There is no evil greater than knowingly taking innocent life. You can do all the partisan mental gymnastics and semantic somersaults you like but the bottomline is that Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, etc are all murderers that should be in Jail for their numerous crimes in the name of White Imperialism. And yes, every single one of them is evil.
So... Who do you think actively and knowingly took innocent lives? Do you really think the president, any president, when asked to authorize a strike, knew that it would kill civilians and authorized it anyways? Do you have any evidence of that? Because that's a war crime, and murder. And yes, that's evil.
I don't need to do any sort of gymnastics to realize the difference between bad policy and evil intent. It's not semantics either - words have meaning, especially words like evil. People kill and die to stop evil. Bad policy is stopped with a well-timed vote.
Now you can wail and yell that people are evil, but when the world is full of real true evil that you can find examples of everyday, and people are murdered horribly all the time for zero reason other than one person's perverse pleasure, anyone who has the ability to think for a second realizes that however wrong any one of those presidents' decisions were, they had to weigh human lives in the balance and decide which ones would be forfeit, and whatever they chose, someone who shouldn't be dead might die.
You want to point at them, fine. Then go find a mirror, because something you're wearing right now was made in some 3rd world sweatshop that kills some of their workers every year. The device you're using has heavy metals in that were mined by people who die every year from lax oversight. There are examples of what you call evil that contribute to everything you do in your everyday life, because people occasionally die to bring it to you, and to you if anyone dies who shouldn't, then anyone involved is complicit in murder.
I'll be expecting you to turn yourself in shortly.
You've never heard of compromise, have you? The perfect is the enemy of the good. You will not get your super progressive (by American standards) candidate elected. Throwing your vote because you've got the temper of a child will do the thing that should outrage you the most: it'll elect the Republican instead.
Whatever crap you spout, the Republican candidate will invariably be even further from your positions than the moderate Democrat. Your choice: would you rather elect someone who is antithesis to your beliefs, who despises you and everyone who thinks like you, or would you rather elect someone who'd act as a bridge to your progressive ideals?
Your choice: would you rather elect someone who is antithesis to your beliefs, who despises you and everyone who thinks like you, or would you rather elect someone who'd act as a bridge to your progressive ideals?
No No, at least be honest about the choice you bootlicking prick:
Would you rather elect someone who openly hates you and spits in your face while they serving the 1% or someone who dislikes you but will throw you a crumb sometimes to shut you up will they serve the 1%
Our Democracy is in shambles and completely under the control of the elite because of generations of voters like you that accepted the sickening "Lesser of two Evils strategy. How many people have suffered and died under the white imperialist boot because you cowards refuses to vote for what is RIGHT instead of voting against what you FEAR?
Oh my, you're great. Do you also have anarchist tattoos?
But seriously, name calling aside, your democracy is in shambles because of repeated grandstanding from people like you driving the presidential seat towards Republicans repeatedly, thus eroding the freedoms and institutions which help protect it. The pragmatic approach would be to work to vote Democrats in systematically and then slowly change the party from the inside, as shown by Bernie Sanders for example. He's done far more for progressive ideologies in the US than people like you ever have or ever will.
The same Bernie Sanders that was robbed in the primaries by the same people you and this entire sub defends? The Same Bernie this sub and people like you endlessly smeared instead of supported when it mattered? The same Bernie you partisan shitstains will turn in in 2020 like the good moderate lapdogs you are because it will be more "pragmatic" to support the Corporate Democrat scumfuck that will spit in your face and sell our Democracy to Wallstreet once elected as always? You sit there like a parrot repeating the same defeatist nonsense:
"We must not let a republican in office no matter what! Vote blue no matter who!!"
Pathetic.
And No, and I'm not an anarchist. Just a liberal. A real one.
You really are enjoyable in your unrelenting outrage, I have to admit. Not so good at reading other people's positions though.
I'm not even American. I have no horse in this race, I'm thankful for being in a far more liberal country than even Bernie himself is positioning himself as. And in spite of that, I was totally a Bernie supporter (as much as I could be anyway), he was a breath of fresh air and brought interesting ideas to the table.
And guess what? Those ideas are making their way into the wider Democrat platform right now. You seem to be too myopic to understand what I'm telling you, but Bernie himself isn't. He understands and readily accepts that his cause is higher and greater than himself. He doesn't care if he actually gets to run as long as his positions become part of the platform. His very presence and the tight race he gave to Clinton has had an impact already. Previously taboo topics are being actively considered and will likely become key tenets in the near future. That's encouraging, that's amazing. Bernie's already won, in a fashion.
But don't let my optimism get in the way of your cynical lashing out at everyone who isn't whining about corporatism.
They need to enable those of us who are progressive and who are looking for positive change and using government to serve the people, BUT they can't be smug about it and push progressive/liberal change above all else. The numbers arent there. They NEED moderates, and so they need moderate candidates.
The idea of the moderate voter is a myth. So called "moderate voters" vote for moderate Dems because they're told progressives can't win and that the alternative is 8 years of batshit insanity from whatever candidate the GOP rolls out.
In reality a vast majority of the american people support progressive policies like medicare-for-all, money out of politics, tuition-free education, marijuana legalization, cuts to the military budgets, ending the foreign wars the US is involved in, and the list goes on. America is a progressive country with a reactionary leadership.
The "moderate voter" myth is fuelled by the fact american democracy is a system in which you vote AGAINST policies you don't like, not FOR policies you do like. The moderate establishment capitalizes on this for their own political and monetary gain, which is why the Democratic leadership sounds like the apocalypse is nigh every time a Republican has a chance at winning any political seat in the country. "THE GREATER EVIL IS COMING AND THE LESSER EVIL IS THE ONLY THING THAT CAN STOP HIM! AAAAAAHHHHHH!"
Americans are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils - they want to vote for the greater of two goods. They want another FDR.
No, they don't. LOTS of them do...I do. But virtually all Republicans are swung to the right at the moment, and then there are libertarians who don't want the government to be a part of the solution. And then there are centrists who are right leaning/left leaning. I'll agree with you there arent as many of those as there are folks towards the edges right now, but they're out there.
If Obama had been white he could have been that FDR. Instead they launched a racist crusade against him on the claim of limited government.
It needs to be an economic platform plain and simple. I agree with most democrat "identity politics" platforms but I don't think it's a way to win voters. I agree with most gun restriction platforms but it isn't how you win voters. Put economics in the spotlight, improve people's lives dramatically so they trust you and then use your platform to explain why we need stringent background checks or why we need further civil rights of minority groups. Don't ever give in on either of those issues and tackle them if they are expedient, but work toward giving everyone hope first.
"those of us who are progressive and who are looking for positive change and using government to serve the people" = those looking for the government to take of them from cradle to grave...
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u/TheKingOfSiam Maryland Dec 13 '17
The DNC has it's work cut out.
They need to enable those of us who are progressive and who are looking for positive change and using government to serve the people, BUT they can't be smug about it and push progressive/liberal change above all else. The numbers arent there. They NEED moderates, and so they need moderate candidates.
And those of us who are more progressive who arent thrilled about moderates need to vote in the primaries, but then follow through and vote for those moderates we don't approve of in the general election. If we don't show up and vote because the moderate isnt pushing enough change, then we lose all of that and hand the Republicans a win.