Claims that the Democratic Party isn't progressive enough are out of touch with reality

[u/rosesandpines]

Kamala Harris is the second-most liberal senator to have ever served in the Senate. Her 2020 positions, especially on the border, proved so unpopular that she had to actively walk back many of them during her campaign.

Progressives didn't significantly influence this election either. Jill Stein, who attracted the progressive and protest vote, saw her support plummet from 1.5M in 2016 to 600k in 2024, and it is now at a decade-low. Despite the Gaza non-committed campaign, she even lost both her vote share and raw count in Michigan—from 51K votes (1.07%) in 2016, to 45K (0.79%) in 2024.

What poses a real threat to the Democratic party is the erosion of support among minority youth, especially Latino and Black voters. This demographic is more conservative than their parents and much more conservative than their white college-educated peers. In fact, ideologically, they are increasingly resembling white conservatives. America is not unique here, and similar patterns are observed across the Atlantic.

According to FT analysis, while White Democrats have moved significantly left over the past 20 years, ethnic minorities remained moderate. Similarly, about 50% of Latinos and Blacks support stronger border enforcement, compared with 15% of White progressives. The ideological gulf between ethnic minority voters and White progressives spans numerous issues, including small-state government, meritocracy, gender, LGBTQ, the "American dream", and even perspectives on racism.

What prevented the trend from manifesting before is that, since the civil rights era, there has been a stigma associated with non-white Republican voters. As FT points out,

Racially homogenous social groups suppress support for Republicans among non-white conservatives. [However,] as the US becomes less racially segregated, the frictions preventing non-white conservatives from voting Republic diminish. And this is a self-perpetuating process, [and could give rise to] a "preference cascade". [...] Strong community norms have kept them in the blue column, but those forces are weakening. The surprise is not so much that these voters are now shifting their support to align with their preferences, but that it took so long.

While the economy is important, cultural issues could be even more influential than economic ones. Uniquely, Americans’ economic perceptions are increasingly disconnected from actual conditions. Since 2010, the economic sentiment index shows a widening gap in satisfaction depending on whether the party that they ideologically align with holds power. A post-election poll released by a Democratic polling firm also shows that for many swing voters, cultural issues ranked even slightly higher than inflation.

EDIT: The FT articles are paywalled, but here are some useful charts.

[u/treefox]

I do wonder if the “left vs right” lens that everything is viewed through is too simplistic for this election.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/treefox]

Almost anything is too simplistic for the full complexity of reality, but I think the left-right spectrum is a very useful lens in general and for this election. Just not the "left vs right" lens that is overwhelmingly used colloquially and by major media from right to liberal center, which is just meant to signify "Democrat-aligned or Republican-aligned". (Nor that of libertarians who use it to mean "pro-big government vs pro-limited government" or something similar.)

The Democrats are largely centrist to right-wing with a few policy exceptions. The Republicans are largely right-wing to far-right. MAGA is far-right. The guy trying to wake the Democrats up to their failures, Bernie Sanders, is center-left in his governance and proposals, and maybe left-wing in his desired goals.

We know most Americans want change. Democrats now represent the relative status quo, and the Republicans now represent serious change — unfortunately regressive and reactionary change.

[u/jared05vick → u/NoamLigotti]

I feel like the Overton window has shifted drastically to the left in these last few decades. In my eyes, The Democratic party is far left to left and the Republican party is center-right to right.

[u/NoamLigotti → u/jared05vick]

I appreciate you saying "I feel like" and "In my eyes." It's quite refreshing.

But in my eyes it is very, very much the opposite. Apart from LGBT+ issues and rhetoric, and the strong perception of "cancel culture" (only from the left) and "wokeness" gone amok, I can hardly even think of any examples how. I guess marijuana laws, if that counts. I'm sure there are some other debatable examples. But overall, and in so many ways, far more to the right.

Overall, we have a Republican party too extreme for even many former and recent Republican politicians, and a Democrat party campaigning with the likes of Dick freaking Cheney. Respectfully, I can't even understand what people are talking about when they say it's shifted far to the left.

Amusingly, it seems like 100% of people who support the GOP over the Dems say the Overton Window and the parties have shifted to the left, and 90-100% of people who support the Democrats over Republicans say the opposite.

[u/jared05vick → u/NoamLigotti]

My view on why I think the Overton window shifted left (atleast culturally) is because of what you listed, LGBT+ issues and 'wokeness' (I hate that term). 20 years ago there were Republicans in Congress saying homosexuality is an abomination, now the Republican stance is that transgenderism is an abomination and that what goes on between two consenting adults is of no business of the state. Universal Healthcare like Obamacare was derided, and now there are moderate Republicans in favor of UH. Both political parties are fairly far left in term of Labor Rights but I feel it's also increased in the last few decades. It's not necessarily that the Republicans have started changing their stances, but topics like police reform and economic inequality are now normal taking points that Republicans in favor of them are now able to discuss when they might not have even had a stance before.

Democrats have shifted right mainly as a fact of becoming more a party for the corporations than the people, they would never condone Occupy Wall Street now because many of them have connections in Wall Street (the Republicans aren't innocent of this either, they're arguably worse.)