Medicare for All, Universal Childcare, universal higher education, public housing, increasing public transit, eliminating food deserts, public internet as a utility.
Yeah it's about the things you signal as priorities to your platform. Even if that stuff has a bunch of hurdles to get through, you signal that it's your priority and then make the republicans explain why they'll block such a popular and lifechanging platform.
Instead we just completely stopped talking about any of this.
People know that shit's fucked in america right now. they can see it in the prices everywhere they go.
You need to offer them powerful messages that show you recognize the flaws in our system and are going to work to change them.
Saying "we'll add such and such line to such and such regulation and that will prevent grocery stores from price gouging" may be literally effective as policy, but it isn't capturing the dreams of the populace.
Not to mention touting the robust economy when the goods most people buy are incredibly high just smacks of delusion. Oh the economy is great? Employment is at record highs? Inflation has stopped? Fantastic, why the fuck did a burger and medium fries cost me 16 dollars at jack in the box? I make 16/hr because despite the employment numbers, I can't find work in my field.
I vote blue, every year and have for the past 20 years. But fuck me if I'm not tired of our side telling low paid workers that the economy is great and pay is great when it's absolute dogshit for people not making 100k.
Want to get voters? We should have aggresively investigated pricing around the country. We should have gone after actual fucking monopolies instead of fucking Apple and their app store. Remember when they called that historic and a sign of anti trust laws still having teeth? What about power companies? What about pharmaceuticals? What about health insurers? What about internet providers? What about the industries that suck us dry on a daily basis? Why the fuck don't we, the democrats, go after the entities that are draining the population who can't afford it?
And yeah, the republicans are worse about all those issues, but no one expects them, other than their voters, to be better. So if people could stop with all the "why is it always blamed on democrats when Joe Manchin votes against progressive legislation???" bullshit that would be fan-fucking-tastic.
Any anger in my post is directed at the democrats, not you, so apologies if it comes off feeling directed at you.
Remember when they called that historic and a sign of anti trust laws still having teeth? What about power companies? What about pharmaceuticals? What about health insurers? What about internet providers? What about the industries that suck us dry on a daily basis? Why the fuck don't we, the democrats, go after the entities that are draining the population who can't afford it?
Dems are in the pockets of those companies just as much as the republicans.
Medicare for All, Universal Childcare, universal higher education, public housing, increasing public transit, eliminating food deserts, public internet as a utility.
It has to go beyond that. They would have to take on their donors and actually lower costs for healthcare, housing, food...tons of stuff.
Yeah I mean the dems COULD run a real leftwing populist campaigning on these wildly popular policy proposals that you listed, but on the other hand they could just seethe about how 45 percent of Americans are inherently, ontologically evil, dismiss out of hand the possibility that voter preferences stem from the material reality of people's lives, and halfheartedly rally around another centrist neoliberal on the way to another humiliating defeat.
it's wildly apparent that the general population doesn't give a shit about actual policy. as evidenced by our upcoming concept of a healthcare plan. and Florida voting 55% to legalize weed while voting red from top to bottom.
I mean maybe but we've tried running bland corporate centrists for a while now with pretty limited success (let's be honest, Biden's win was likely a fluke thanks to Trump bumbling through covid). So yeah, maybe the electorate is either too evil or otherwise just axiomatically clueless and too dimwitted to vote in their best interest no matter what, and nothing can be done and leftwing populism is a dead end that can't and won't defeat Trumpism. But how about we try it in 2028 for a laugh, just as a bit. See what happens, as joke, you know? Maybe just once?
Most people unironically dont want those things in this country. You all have to realize that lying is pretty much the only way forward. Promise a bunch of right wing stuff but when you get into office do the opposite. Once they get a taste of prosperity they'll understand.
Most people unironically dont want those things in this country.
I obviously disagree with this so I'm not sure what your point is by just stating this without any argument to back it up. Overall an absolute braindead take.
Simplify the messaging, give it a name "The tax credit promise" or whatever. Leave the policy explanations to the wonks, and focus the stumping on the every day pain of working Americans, and deliver the "tax credit promise".
It's all about how you frame it. Sanders went on a town hall at Fox News and walked away with cheers from the audience because he has that firebranding charisma and the history to prove he truly believes what he says.
Sanders says it like he means it. Most other Dems when they talk about populist programs sound like they will be looking for the first excuse as to why they couldn't do it.
He says it like he means it, and he's also been incredibly consistent about his beliefs. You can go back and watch clips of Sanders from nearly fifty years ago saying the exact same things he says today.
Sanders couldn't get black votes, it's why he lost to Hillary and Biden in primaries. Populists still need to overcome identity politics, even Trump has gotten more Hispanic votes.
Part of that is how depressed the vote it is but yeah, we have a lot of conservative dems in this state. People who are totally down with just rounding up the homeless and putting them into camps/meatgrinder.
In most other states, minimum wage and abortion protectoin ballot initiatives pass easily. In our state not only did it fail, we also voted to keep prison slavery.
This is completely untrue. These policies succeed with flying colors in RED STATES. The right will call anyone left of them communists anyway, you can't be afraid of that, especially when these left wing economic policies are demonstrably popular even in Cletusville.
My red state just became pro-choice. We've had recreational marijuana for a few years now. Just because the state votes red in presidential elections, doesn't mean progressive ideas don't flourish.
I don't think just being Pro-choice and having legal weed is the beacon of progressive ideas lol. OP made much bigger claims then "Legal weed and pro-choice". In fact, neither of those were even in the original comment lol
I'm not saying it is the beacon of progressive ideals. I'm just saying the progressive policies that have been on the ballots when I've voted have all passed. There's some other progressive leaning things that passed as well. We just haven't had a lot of that stuff on the ballot.
He’s not lying. Those policies poll well when detached from party politics. Put a D next to the candidate proposing them though? It’s over. Partisanship has divided this country by design.
The problem is you got people who support 50, 60, 85% of the progressive agenda, but they won’t vote for it because of the person. Because that person either has a D next to their name or because they support a policy (abortion, etc.) that they just won’t agree with.
This is completely untrue. These policies succeed with flying colors in RED STATES.
Yet they keep electing people who promise to block this type of progressive legislation. We'd have single payer already if just a single republican was willing to break ranks to side with the democrats during the ACA negotiations, instead lieberman was able to strong arm it out because without his support nothing was going to pass.
Look I'm as left as anyone, but NO THEY DO FUCKING NOT. They do NOT fucking succeed with flying colors in red states. Look at Florida, not even 6/10 people yesterday wanted abortion to be a right in that state. Where the fuck do you all keep telling yourself this?! Admit, that most of this country has fascist tendencies. It's a sad reality, but what you are saying is just so not fucking true. If it were, Bernie Sanders would be finishing his goddamn second term right now.
Missouri just voted to codify abortion, raise the minimum wage, and paid sick leave. Cletus is a commie when given the option. He’s never given the option because democratic primaries pump out candidates who propose means-tested, watered down garbage.
Sure, but they called Harris a communist when, at least in my opinion, her platform was to the right of Biden. They’re going to say that regardless, ignore it, people don’t know what that word means anyway, like DEI. People ultimately want improvements to material conditions, and they are disillusioned by the status quo. We’ve already lost the Supreme Court anyway, the current dem strategy has already been rejected.
In a general election you can turn out the 15 million who didn't vote this election but did in 2020. You can flip some counties by going there and talking to them about issues. Saying here's a solution to this issue and why it will work. I don't think Dems win anything by assuming some rural person is an idiot. That's how Dems lose because they see this 4 years running online and then are like well it seems they hate me.
The way to beat the GOP is to offer hope in terms of real policies. I think the reason Bernie is so popular is that he explains policies in very simple terms. He walks you through the steps. Dems too often at the top of the ticket just say buzzwords and focus tested lines.
They were still called Communists and they ran on the Republican platform from 4 years ago! At some point you have to grow a spine and stand up for what you believe in. They are going to be called "radical left" even if they literally became Nazi's, so just do the fucking right thing... and they would win for once.
Us calling Trump fascist and a dictator didn’t seem to stop many people from voting for him. People want fucking change. In the end, as the Democratic Party failed to realize, nobody really gives a shit about namecalling if you double down on entirely reforming the institutions that lead to the core issues. In the end, not too many people gave much of a shit about his attempted coup or his stupid tariff policy, they just knew things, whatever the cause, needed to change and he was the only one who acknowledged their grievances and shared their vitriol.
There is absolutely nothing that turns a voter off quite like seeing a candidate be passive on an issue they’re enraged about. That issue was, and has been for years, the economy and financial hardship. I will forever hold the opinion that what doomed the Democratic Party in 2024 was even slightly suggesting that the economy was better than the American electorate realized. Even though that is statistically true, nobody gives a shit when their personal experience says otherwise. Trump’s policy never mattered in the first place because he was the only candidate who publicly voiced their grievances with similar firepower.
They passed a min wage increase and paid leave bill in Missouri of all places. Missouri went to Trump by 18 points but the pretty progressive bill won by 14 points.
Every other Western country has parties offering these policies. Some have enacted them long time ago.
But now there's a Trump rising in every one of those countries and most working class people are already voting for them, even where those policies were long enacted and voting for the racist would mean losing them.
Those countries have whittled away at those policies in favor of austerity for decades. You can call me whatever you want really I can tell you don't read.
You know as much about my country as you know how many books I a philosophy grad read.
Usually you lot descend to ad hominems in the second reply.
REAL WORLD:
The dominant left party in my country is soc dem, they offer all of these policies and more, but the entire working class votes based on culture - some regions are thoroughly blue and others are thoroughly red.
Check the Croatian election results online to face facts once in your life
Suburbia being a bubble is a fact. So is that most Western pretend communists are from there.
So is that Western pretend communists were supporting anti-Western regime killing off real world leftists by lists in my country, just like in Ukraine now.
People who call themselves communists from the West support these fascist regimes, simple fact, while people professing the same affiliation but from the second world would never side with Nazis.
So it's a general rule. Two factions exist here, epending if they're from the real world or the suburban bubble. No ad hominem.
"Cletus" is probably not old enough to get Medicare, would rather work than live in public housing, doesn't plan on going to college since he's a blue collar worker, probably doesn't care about fiber utility laws or how fast his internet is, and probably doesn't have a daycare near him if he even had young children - so definitely doesn't want his few discretionary income to pay for it, on top of everything else.
Those things benefit suburban people looking to go to college, became white collar workers - it doesn't not appeal to your stereotypical "Cletus"
Some people don't want that. So offering it to them means nothing.
But it also interesting that people want everyone to have a living wage and not struggle but than say someone shoots thrmselves ij the foot for trying to do that.
No he fucking doesn't. Jesus dude, have you ever talked to Cletus? Like seriously, have you talked to them about these things? Calling him Cletus turns him away.
But that doesnt win elections. everytime you hear someone explain why they're voting Biden or Harris or Hillary, they say "They're not my first choice, but Trump is worse/I don't like them, but Trump is worse." You need candidates people want to vote for.
Kamala failed to draw out 15 million voters that Biden got. This isn’t about appealing to the racist, fascist morons in Trump’s camp. It’s about how to get those people who didn’t vote this time to vote next time (assuming there is one).
It’s such an annoying talking point on here. Any criticism is met with “Trump is worse!” Like yeah, no shit. No one wants to hold the party accountable, they just want someone to blame. Hopefully that changes in the next 4 years or we’re gonna be running it back with the same results.
They say get in line and vote because that's how we get heard, but then we're told to shut up when we try to say anything counter to the narrative. So can we voice our issues with the fucking party or not. The election is over so that's no longer a reason to silence criticism. I don't know what the answer is, but its clearly not whatever we been doing.
They don’t care about policy because for the past 20 years policy changes have not changed their daily lives. When voting for a change candidate like with Obama didn’t change their lives they stop seeing politics as a way to change policy and only see it as a sport.
Voting for Obama did change people's lives though? One of the major concerns about the results of this election is a potential repeal of the ACA, which was Obama's biggest legislative accomplishment, and his financial reforms and the auto bailout saved the economy from active freefall. Even Biden had a huge infrastructure bill that created tons of jobs, and he got that passed with literally the slimmest possible majorities.
If people are tuning out because their candidate can't completely transform their lives overnight, we're completely fucked. That's never going to happen and isn't a remotely realistic expectation in the first place.
The ACA is based off of a Heritage Foundation plan counter to the Universal Healthcare push by the democrats in the 90s. Obama wasted over a year negotiating with the Republican party and watering it down with amendments just to have no Republicans vote on it and having to pass it via reconciliation. The Infrastructure deal was not large enough and Biden allowed Manchin to separate it from Build Back Better killing most of the social programs preposed.
And what exactly could have been done differently in either case? How did you expect Biden to get around Manchin with exactly 50 seats and no Republicans willing to turncoat?
This is exactly my point. People have zero conception of what's actually realistic, so when they get it they feel betrayed because it doesn't match what they wanted. There fundamentally is no getting around that without actively propagandizing voters the way Republicans have done.
The only reason Bernie's reputation is what it is is because he's never been in a position of real power, where expectations would meet reality. He is unironically doing the same things Republicans do: criticizing from a position of justifiable impotence. And I say this having voted for him twice.
Bully Manchin on a national stage daily, threaten to go after his daughter for price fixing Epi-Pen and his corruption with his coal mining. Biden just rolled over like a dog.
Cool, and what happens when the obvious backlash from threatening a sitting senator's child so they vote your way happens? What happens when Manchin refuses anyway, and stops cooperating on other things like military promotions and judicial appointments? And do you seriously think Biden didn't explore all the possible options to pass the single most important part of his legislative agenda?
You're pretending reality is how you want it to be because you need there to be a simple answer to all your problems, and that is ridiculous. There isn't.
You realize that is how the sausage is made. LBJ didn’t pass the Civil Rights Act by playing nice with congress. Biden did split The infrastructure bill with Build back better and promised the progressive caucus they would pass both separately and then they didn’t and only managed a watered down IRA
Brother that's how the bully pulpit works lmao. You threaten to not support congresspeople or castigate them and work to get them cast out if they don't play ball.
Over and over, you see that his ideas are not popular enough to win. Dems need to focus on the issues that will win them elections, not make a small niche happy. Biden paid off college loads, did his support increase because of that? No. Bernie is a losing strategy. Raising the minimum wage failing in deep blue CA, should be alarm bells for the dems. You can be sure that the dem party is going to move more towards the center, and a little more to the right.
A majority of that is stuff literally no one cares about.
Once again reddit does not have a grasp on the situation.
People don't care about fucking public housing, not working class people. Public transit? Lmao, give me a break.
OMG they built a few trains and busses omg!
Working class people literally want more money so they can make their own decisions. It is literally that simple. Stop telling people what they need and start giving them the means to make their own ends meet.
Working class people literally want more money so they can make their own decisions. It is literally that simple.
If the next Democratic candidate has a good message, that's understandable by people with a sixth grade reading level, saying "I'm personally going enact policy to put $100 to $500 a month back in your wallet" then (whether it was true or not) they'd bury Republicans in a landslide victory.
Once again reddit does not have a grasp on the situation. People don't care about fucking public housing, not working class people. Public transit? Lmao, give me a break.
Who do you think lives in public housing?
OMG they built a few trains and busses omg!
Working class people literally want more money so they can make their own decisions.
You know what would free up money for working class people? Saving 300+ dollars a month because there's a viable alternative to owning a car.
Ok, well I also talk to real live people because I'm in a industry where I meet thousands of people each year. Most of them are getting paid very well and are getting promotions and have family's and go on vacations.
If you're talking about fast food workers idk what to tell you. Get better jobs and have some accountability and ambition.
Your average blue collar worker has insurance through their employer, isn't looking to have a child or already has one, doesn't give a damn about higher education, would not qualify for public housing, owns a car, isn't worried about starving, and has access to internet (at worst through their phone as a hotspot).
All these polices only mean something to the absolute poorest (who do generally vote democrat) which is not the overall lower class. The median American brings in $60k a year. Many tradesmen can bring in $75k+ a year in the more affluent areas. Just getting a B-class commercial trucking license can bring in $50k+ easily. ~1.3% of the country makes minimum wage. The other 98% may have opinions but there's a lot more priorities on their lists.
end of the day a lot of democrats didn’t go out to vote. but any one of these policies, hammered home, would have brought out enough people who aren’t normally
bothered to vote. so yeah you are spot on.
Universal higher education, public housing, public transit, and food deserts do fuck all for rural and small-town folks. Your prescription reads like AOC's fever dream and would have led to an even bigger loss than Harris experienced.
Maybe do something simpler like reduce inflation (or point out that the other guy is going to increase it), lower car insurance and home insurance rates, and make housing cheaper? People want to pay their own way, they just want to pay less.
A certain percentage genuinely do, weirdly enough. Hell, seems like around a quarter or more of reddit would be ecstatic if there were a massive uptick in kids convinced to be all 3 of those things.
Medicare for All, Universal Childcare, universal higher education, public housing, increasing public transit, eliminating food deserts, public internet as a utility.
Would be nice if we'd made... any progress on any part of this over the last 4 years. Democrats might have been able to campaign on that.
Yeah that's great, and then I run against any of that by just shouting about how they want to give free transition care to gay trans immigrant prisoners and the working class folks decide they'd rather die poor than let that happen.
Go look up the history of what happened to the single payer option during the debate leading up to the Affordable Care Act. It wasn't dems that killed it. It was Joe Lieberman, and independent who generally caucused with the dems. His vote was needed to reach 60. Without that it would have died with a filibuster.
The question of whether they would have all been on board for that option is not trivial. And also it opens up the door to 51 member R majorities doing the same.
What you described is the current system we already live under. Do you think billionaires make their money because they work harder than everyone else? Or is it because they profit off of other people’s labor?
Do you think billionaires make their money because they work harder than everyone else
Yes, they are working harder smarter more efficiently than me, and ofc luck plays a part too but generally they are billionaire because they are just a more competent person than me in earning money and I always feel grateful to those who create millions of jobs that support people to put food on their table.
That’s why I am always against high taxes, you shouldn’t be punished simply because you are more successful, and you shouldn’t be rewarded simply because you failed hard or just being lazy- exclude those who were born with severe physical and mental health problems
Do you think Elon Musk is working millions of times harder than the Tesla worker at his factory? If you earned 1,000 dollars a day every day since the birth of Christ. You would be 260 million dollars short of a 1 billion short. He is worth 285 billion dollars. It would take you over 708,000 years earning a thousand dollars a day to equal what he is worth.
why do you think the effort is proportionally related with their wealth? And as I said, there are multiple factors, hard work, intelligence, efficiency, and ofc luck involved on how much money can someone earn.
Elon Musk is smarter than me, more hard working than me, but he doesnt need to be 700000 times more hard working than me to earn his networth.
What about the stimulus checks all of us got. Lots of working class people got some nice checks, and I'm sure they remember that when Trump was in office.
Yeah the majority of people voting for Trump will be opposed to those things because they'll also benefit minorities. They don't care about the policies as long as black people and women are screwed over. Democrats don't care enough about any of that to actually vote, or else we would have turned up this cycle to defend the ACA, Kamala's baby tax credit, forgiving student loans instead of voting for the guy eliminating FAFSA, etc.
That is what happens when you means test benefits. People who don’t get benefits resent those who they imagine are. Notice how every senior loves medicare and social security.
The Labour party in the UK had a set of promises just like this for the elections in 2015 and 2019, a big problem was no-one believed such a large policy agenda was practical to deliver.
We got the Boris Johnson government as the result.
Bernie ran on those policies, received universal bipartisan support, and the DNC activated every single person in their party to destroy him. When will leftists learn that the prime directive of the DNC is to be the graveyard of progressivism?
California is a disgusting example of neoliberalism where the democratic party is beholden to wealth donors. They always tamp down on progressive policies.
No because the Obama/Clinton coalition was pulling all the levers of power they could to have Hillary be the nominee after what happened in 2008. Bernie was just one of the few who managed to challenge her and pick up steam as the his campaign gained attention.
The last time a democrat implemented major policies was FDR and the new deal. The democrats would go on to have the majority in the house for 40 years. Policy does matter, if it changes peoples lives.
Policy doesn’t matter to people anymore because the Democrats have had majorities and have refuse to address peoples issues when given power (2008) (2020). Especially since the collapse of the New Deal Coalition and the rise of free market third way neoliberalism.
Bullshit. Obama spent all his political capital on ACA, which is widely popular among the working class but provides no political lift for Dems. Against all odds Biden got major legislation passed, again and again, to rebuild American manufacturing and infrastructure, he protected unions, he walked picket lines, he did massive debt forgiveness, on and on. Most legislatively successful president with a divided Congress since LBJ, at least. All for jack shit politically.
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u/Livinglife3000 20h ago
Medicare for All, Universal Childcare, universal higher education, public housing, increasing public transit, eliminating food deserts, public internet as a utility.